Beyond Beasts
by CatalystOfTheSoul
Summary: Danny's abilities are getting less reliable by the minute, Tucker can barely keep up with damage control, and it doesn't help that Dash decided to tag along. There's something fishy about this vacation, and it's not the lake. The forest is playing tricks, water is appearing in places it shouldn't, and there's a vacancy expected at Algernon's Summer Camp for Boys.
1. 1 Prepared For Anything

**Beyond Beasts  
** _A Danny Phantom fanficiton by Catalystofthesoul._

 **Prepared for Anything**  
 _(except for that)_

* * *

1

There are some things which, in the absence of context, have little to no significance in the grand scheme. To think of these small details as consequential is a paralyzing act; a trap that turns each choice into a decision between Life and Death.

Danny leaned on a wall.

It smelled like sulfur, or an aftertaste of sulfur, a smell that wasn't a smell so much as it was an overall _presence_. He attributed this to the nearly invisible reflection of scales dancing in sunlight, which upon closer inspection formed the outline of a thin fish that plucked at molding sandwiches on top of the compost. Danny let out a small sound; more of a high-pitched hum that went above human hearing. The fish twitched to look at him, gills flaring.

"What're you talking to?"

Tucker scared the fish away. Weighed down with a spectacular canvas backpack, he approached with his legs bowed and body folded to accommodate the load. His lips were pressed together with the exertion of carrying it uphill; he shrugged the bag off and let it crash in a dusty cloud. Tucker wiped a hand across his forehead. He considered the compost with the wary kind of disposition one had when random things made a habit of coming to life to feast on the living. "Nothing." Danny crouched by Tucker's bag. "I hope you didn't break this."

Tucker snorted. He assessed the treeline that stretched endlessly beyond the compost before addressing Danny. "Your parents make bricks, Danny. I'm pretty sure it could fall a hundred feet and survive. Did you find a power outlet?"

Danny gestured to a little grey box painted olive green to blend in with the wooden slats of the outdated kitchen. Tucker nodded and pulled a bulky black and silver rectangular device from his bag. It was bound in a cage of iron, spotted with welding scars that bubbled across the surface, and even inactive produced a low technological hum; this is the true hallmark of a Fenton masterpiece. It used to be a guitar amplifier, though it hardly resembled that now. Danny dropped to his knees, he pulled a folded piece of notebook paper from his pocket and inspected the panel where the iron cage parted just enough to reach a series of knobs and switches.

The controls were archaic by modern Fenton standards, but highly adjustable. Danny scanned the labels he'd assigned each dial and compared them to the notes in his hand. "I'm glad we're thinking ahead now." Tucker plugged their extension cord into the wall. "Nice to have a safe place to run if stuff goes haywire. Even nicer when the safe place is a kitchen."

Danny flipped a switch with a copper vein running through it, goosebumps raced down his arms. Ghost shields never felt nice; even in his human form the electromagnetic pulse it emit made him deeply uncomfortable. He grit his teeth. He had to slip closer to his ghost half so that his vision sharpened and the edges of the shield became visible to him - he wasn't ghost enough to activate his change, but enough for the air to start stinging him while he adjusted the size of the shield to encompass as much of the kitchen as possible. Tucker didn't comment on the fact that his friend was suddenly glowing, but he did do a cursory check over his shoulder and shoved his hands in his pockets. Casual.

Danny turned the knobs, discomfort settled deep in his gut while the shield surrounded him. "Did you notice Dash is here?" he asked to distract himself.

"Yeah, he's in my dorm group. He seemed eager to ignore us."

Danny shrugged. "Still gonna be hell, though."

"I seriously think we've dealt with worse."

They had, but Danny still hoped they'd have a peaceful time in the woods before going home to fight ghosts. Dash's arrival tipped him off that he was about to have a typical streak of Fenton Bad Luck. "Well." He sighed. "I got this to cover half the mess hall. Widest range I can give it while sustaining enough strength to take a pounding from what will probably be a lake monster or something."

"A lake monster. At summer camp." Tucker rolled his eyes. "Sounds a little cliché."

"Remember the mummy we found in a museum?"

"Point."

"One more minute…" Danny adjusted the controls to shift the shield's perimeter towards the mess hall so it wasn't centered to the shield; this left the compost and garbage bins outside of its range. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled when the ghost fish from before drifted back to the compost, sinking on top of it with relief. Soft whispers of ghostspeak touched his supernatural hearing while the creature murmured to the garbage.

A shrill, piercing wail broke his concentration. Danny yelped and slammed his hands over his ears, recoiling. "Fuck!" _Human, human, human_ … The lights in his eyes faded, the shine on his skin went away, and the shrill noise repeated as the sharp pierce of a tin whistle. Danny got up off the ground, annoyed. Tucker gave him a look of pity. "Ghost ears?"

"I just wasn't expecting it." He brushed himself off and went towards the stupid sound, convincing his heart to stop racing. Mixing ghost abilities with his human form tended to overstimulate his senses, and now everything was too bright and too loud. The whistle sounded again when they rounded the hall and walked between two cabins to a circular mound and a flag pole. Boys gathered in clusters. Tucker placed a hand on his shoulder when Danny continued to flinch. "You gotta calm down."

"I _am_ calm."

Danny's counselor, Troy, stood in the center of the ring of cabins, a whistle in his mouth and a megaphone in his hand. He stood on top of a milk crate with his hands on his hips, whistling over and over again until the crowd gathered close enough to satisfy him. The other counselors urged their charges to shut up, pay attention, put their phones away…

Tucker slipped his phone in his pocket and stood at the edge with Danny, looking his best friend over to make sure he was human. Danny gave him a scowl. "I'm in control." He whispered.

Tucker finished checking him over by staring deeply into his eyes, searching for traces of ectoenergy. "...Yeah, you're clear."

"I said I was clear."

"And I agreed."

"Welcome to Camp Algernon!" Troy announced, wiping a hand through his short black hair and sweeping his gaze over the crowd. "Okay, so, Jason's handing out schedules. If you don't already know, he's the counselor for C and D groups, and this is Malcolm, he's got E and F,"

They were given schedules on blindingly pink sheets of paper. Troy held aloft a white ball. "So now you're settled we're gonna go down to the beach and play some volleyball!"

Tucker nudged him. "Schedule says we get _free time_ till dinner."

"I guess free time means go and get humiliated in sports." Danny shrugged, pocketing the schedule.

"I doubt _you're_ the who's gonna be humiliated."

* * *

The volleyball net was set distant enough from the water that the sand wasn't damp, but it was still soft and pebble-free. Down beyond the net, there were picnic tables, then water. The water stretched to a far treeline and sourced a cooling breeze.

Danny considered the way his skin was patterned with scars so faded it was almost as if he had never had them, but he knew that a simple change and a flash of light would make them more apparent. The discomfort began in his gut and spread to flush across his bare chest. Danny pulled at his shirt, a cloth in his hands, and twisted it over and over again. Tucker, the picture of indifference, was busy with a recycled version of Pac Man on his phone. "I hate being on the skins team." Danny muttered, crossing his arms to hide the scars which logically only he could see. He glanced at Tucker's phone, trying to distance himself from creeping anxiety.

"Don't." Tucker took a full step away.

Where Danny hated exposing his body, Tucker hated sharing screens. His phone was meant for his eyes, and unless if he willingly shared it, no one else's. After ten years of friendship, Danny wanted to complain about the quality of their relationship when a whistle blew and set his teeth on edge. He rubbed his ears. "I'm going to crush that whistle before this trip is over." He glared at Troy.

"Eh. I'll help you give it a proper burial."

"In the fiery depths of Hell?'

"Sure."

Teams formed on each side of the net, Danny watching the shirts gather with envy. He snagged Tucker's elbow and dragged him over to their team, kicking off his shoes to get the sand out of them. An entire week on this lake was supposed to be kind of nice, relaxing, and yet now he had to deal with having his shirt off, scars exposed, and maybe someone would be able to look close enough, maybe someone would notice and start to ask about where they came from… "Oh man, _Fenton's_ on our team?" Dash Baxter, far more impressive without a shirt than with one, wasn't pleased. "It's bad enough I have to spend the whole week with you but now we're going to lose _points_ because of it?"

Danny had the decency to pretend Dash didn't exist. He and Tucker moved as far from the net as they could while still considered 'participants', hoping that beach volleyball had a loose application of rules that allowed slackers to be overlooked. To their vast excitement, Dash Baxter didn't seem to think they deserved any safety at all. He marched right up to them, ball under his arm. "You're first serve." He said, holding out the ball.

Danny blinked. "Me?"

"Does it look like I'm talking to anybody else, Fentina?"

"Why?"

Dash shoved the ball into his hands. Danny opened and closed his mouth, unsure of what he was supposed to make of it. "Hit the ball over the net and that's _it_. Don't try to be a hero, and don't get in my way."

Dash moved away, but he still felt close, as if he were still standing over him, inspecting all the shadows on his skin. Something crawled up his throat and filled it, cutting off his air. They were all looking at him now, they had to be, wondering if something supernatural had taken over Danny's body like a parasite. They were probably - "Fenton!" Danny flinched and dropped the ball. He shook his head, glancing. Dash was scowling at him, but his voice was softer. "Hit the ball over the net, Fenton. It's not gonna bite you."

He recovered the ball and nodded, taking a deep breath.

He served.

With a smack the ball soared up over the net, over the heads of the opposing team, beyond the picnic tables and fire pit, over patches of pebbles and grass, and slammed into the lake with a resounding thunderclap. It bobbed there on the surface, small and far away. A flush, red and embarrassed, crept up his neck and into his cheeks; while the teams were distracted by just how far the ball had just gone, Danny leapt into action. "I'll get it!" He shouted, sand flying behind him as he ran.

In a perfect world they'd all be statues, too stunned to go after him, but they weren't. The heavy landing of feet chased him all the way to the water's edge, only stopping when Danny raced into the water. The volleyball wasn't far; he waded up to his hips and grabbed it, then turned around. Dash stood at the edge of the lake, water soaking his sandals. Danny considered himself, in wet shorts now, and moved slowly back to Dash to give him the ball. "Weird, huh?" He tried to shake the water off his legs. "Beginner's luck, I guess."

His shorts clung to his thighs.

"You're terrible at volleyball." Dash took the ball from him; frowning, calculating. Danny waited, not entirely sure what could make him more exposed; he glanced back at the match. People were waiting, staring at him, and his stomach flipped. They wouldn't stop looking at him for the rest of the day. Or the rest of the week. Maybe they would never stop thinking about him, what he was, what he'd done. They'd whisper about him, make his skin crawl. He'll feel their emotions shift every time he enters a room, to fear, hostility, hatred - "You don't look so good, Fenton."

Danny flinched. Dash was _still_ staring. "Sorry?"

"Are you sick or something?"

He didn't answer because he didn't know what the answer would even be. Dash waited for a reply; Danny managed a shrug.

"I think you should take a break. Get some water."

"That's awfully nice of you." Danny folded his arms over his chest and attempted to be defensive, but he began to shiver. It wasn't helpful.

Dash rolled his eyes and walked away, marching back up to the volleyball nets. Tucker was there, in front of everyone, as if ready to run over and check to see if Danny was being human enough today. The thought made him believe he might actually get sick. He bit his lip and went uphill, if anything to avoid Tucker's concern, and went to the collection of disjointed cabins. They were all built at different times, with the styles of different eras determining their architecture. The mess hall was painted army green and had a wide porch, while the cabin beside it had panels of light-colored wood with pink doors and window frames.

He entered the cafeteria on edge. Ghost shields may be useful, but this one still set his hairs standing up when he walked through it to get to the public fridge. Opening it, he crouched to inspect shelves of lunch meats and rows of gatorade. Danny shuffled things around, searching for a normal bottle of water. There were juice boxes, a sealed green bowl, ketchup...

Wood creaked, though from a distance. Danny shifted from human hearing to something sharper. Beating drums - hearts - and the grinding of metal against itself alerted him to turn around and face the opening door, the light from outside blinding. Danny blinked, recalling his ghost half. _Human_. The light adjusted, the pounding of hearts left his ears, and the sandy scent of mold drifted away. "Uhh. Hey."

Troy came in and stopped at the first table, looking Danny up and down. "What're you doing up here? You're supposed to be at the beach." Danny would have happily replied with a smooth, well-rehearsed lie, but behind Troy entered a man in a fancy polo and another with a white button-up and the world's most recognizable scowl.

Danny crashed into the fridge in his haste to step back; it wobbled dangerously.

Vlad glanced first at the dust steadily falling from the ceiling and followed its path down to the boy trapped against the back of the room. He quirked an eyebrow and, very typically, grinned. "Daniel! What a surprise." He stepped beyond the counselor, flinching the moment he walked through the ghost shield and nearly losing his footing. Vlad stopped abruptly, glaring at the place where the shield began, and then turned to unleash that same glare on Danny.

"What're you doing here?" Danny snapped, accusatory.

"I'd ask you the same question." Vlad straightened. "You're not the type to stray from your nest."

"Wow, and the fruitcake learns I have a life." Danny snapped, digging a gatorade out of the fridge. He settled on yellow not-water for the sole reason that anything was better than sticking around. His chest flushed warm, still unclothed, and his shorts dripped down naked legs. Vlad had the exact type of eyesight that could identify every scar on him and the privilege of having put some of them there. It made his stomach twist.

Troy moved up beside Vlad, clearly confused. "Hey, uh, kid. Daniel."

" _Danny_."

"Danny. You need to go back to the beach now, alright? Not supposed to wander off."

"Yeah, I was just leaving." He moved past Vlad; his ghost half, riled by Vlad's presence, was forcibly shut down when he walked through the shield giving Danny more than a little shock. He ground his teeth.

"Have fun, Daniel."

"Don't talk to me."

The screen door squeaked when Danny threw it open and marched into the afternoon heat. The volleyball game was in full swing on the beach, and didn't appear to have room for him anymore. This suited Danny just fine. He sat down on a log beside the fire pit to watch, propping his chin on his hands. There had to be a reason Vlad was here. It was probably evil. It probably had to do with him. It was definitely going to be painful. Tucker ended up beside him, covered in sweat, while a skinny kid from upstate replaced him - only to slam the ball under the net and make the whole skins team groan. "What's the point of a boy's camp?" Tucker muttered, putting his phone into battery-save mode.

Danny gave him the gatorade. "You heard Sam. It's a ruse to bring us all to our misogynistic deaths. Guess who's here."

"Walker?" Tucker perked up. Ghost hunting was a lot more satisfying than volleyball.

"It's -" He hesitated. "Vlad."

"Oh."

Tucker went from mild excitement right back to destroying asteroids on his phone. "That sucks."

"What? Not even mild apprehension? Vlad's here, up to something? _Nefarious_ somethings?"

Tucker lost his game. He hit start on the next one. "Vlad's kind of your territory, Danny. It's not like he's a ghost we can really hunt, and he's definitely not a ghost you'll _let me_ hunt. If you go missing, I know what to do and who to call and stuff, but…" Tucker lost again and sighed. "If I freak out I'm going to act, and if I act _you_ freak out. It sucks. It really does, and I'll do my best to help you figure it out, but, I mean, when he threatens you you don't even tell us about it."

"Because he's _dangerous_ , Tucker!"

"I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you've made him your business and yours only. So if you need me to help, I'm here, but don't expect me to go all overprotective-Sam on you." Tucker scowled. "You'd hate that anyway."

Danny watched the game, making it a point to fume. The first match disbanded when one of the shirts kicked the ball into the picnic tables; instead of retrieving it for the millionth time everyone just broke up for snacks and chatter. Danny's gaze followed Dash putting on a shirt, thinking out loud. "If Vlad's here it's got to do with me."

"We should move the shield to your dorm." Tucker replied sensibly. "At least that will make kidnapping you more of a challenge."

"We didn't bring that shield here to protect _me_ , Tuck, it's for everyone else. And he already knows we have a shield." Danny allowed himself an indulgent smirk. "Nearly fell over when he walked into it."

"Hilarious."

Danny was a little offended Tucker hadn't given his concern as much attention as it deserved. "If he decides to kidnap me a shield won't really do much. He'll find a way. He'll threaten you, or everyone. Play on the fact that I'm a decent human being. He might have just come all the way up here to mess with me. Or distract me. He's gotta be doing something big." He folded his arms. Tucker was insanely good at ignoring his tapping foot. Danny huffed and left to find and put on a shirt. When he got back, Tucker put his phone away. "Are you gonna talk about it?"

"About Vlad?"

" _No_." Tucker glanced at the boys gathering around his counselor, Malcolm.

Danny glared. "You're going to need to clarify."

"About you always getting paranoid out of your socks when we leave Amity."

"Is that? I - I -" They weren't going to have this conversation again. "I do not! There's - Dash is here." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Vlad is here. Dash was - I dunno, being nice or something. There's a cool breeze right now and it's _June_. Two of my greatest human enemies and you're not even - you're playing _Fruit Ninja!_ "

"Conspiracy theories don't generally help paranoia. I'm trying to be a voice of reason here."

Danny fumed. "Or a voice that moans 'it's none of my business' while his best friend gets pulped."

"You know that isn't true."

"Do I?" Tense, overlapping silence constricted around his shoulders. He only broke it because they'd have to wait for Tucker's cell phone to die before Danny could win that contest. "I'm going for a walk," he announced.

Tucker launched an angry bird at a pig. "Kay. Come back soon; they're making burgers. And don't get into any weird ghost stuff without me."

"Mmm." Danny shoved on a pair of shoes and frowned at the sensation of sand mushing up against his toes. "Unless it's Vlad?"

"Obviously."

" _Great_."

* * *

The day was starting to fade from afternoon into evening. There were bugs everywhere, in hazy clouds just above the water. Tall pine trees dominated the area, making the ground into nothing but an orange nest of dry needles. He followed a couple of thin animal paths through some prickly bushes, then moved uphill away from the lake. It was cooler the farther he walked, the colder air fed into his ghost core, pleasing in sensation. He sat down when he found a big rock to perch on.

He had become surrounded by the strange quiet of trees; evening sunlight kissed dust between the branches, filling the forested area with glowing beams. Surreal mushrooms grew out of rotting wood, and the dry grass of the forest floor rustled in the evening wind. It was getting to be twilight; the veil between realms wore thin. His ghost half flared just a little, flushing his body with sharper sense and control. In front of him, on a patch that was mostly broken red rock and prickly weeds, a white mist slowly materialized into the shape of a fawn sniffing at the ground. The forest was dense with all kinds of life, even ghost life.

If anyone could call it that.

The fawn turned, red eyes meeting his, probably sensing what lay under Danny's skin. It trembled. Danny let the soft hum of ghost speech rise from his gut and into his voice, echoing around the trees as some forgotten ancient language. The deer took a step back, ears flattening. It replied in kind, its shaken ghostspeak smelling like rain and tasting like salt. Danny tried to interpret the question that was more a feeling of vague apprehension than a cohesive thought. He replied, to the best of his ability, speaking in emotion and sensation.

The ghost's fur moved in a breeze that pulled in the opposite direction of the wind. It went back to grazing, or at least the memory of what grazing was like, little hooves hovering an inch above the earth. Danny let the accomplishment of getting a little ghost to trust him warm him from his stomach to his toes. He watched it move, tiny tail twitching and sniffing at everything. It lifted its head, peering at Danny or - beyond Danny, at something that was both nearby and far away. It turned and abruptly fled, getting two wide bounds away before it vanished once more into a thin mist that merged with the forest.

His ghost sense hadn't gone off.

Danny pushed off his rock and rubbed his head, feeling an ache start to form right behind his eyes, and spun around. "What do you _want_?" He tried to sound as exhausted as possible.

Vlad was probably one of the only creatures in existence who could sneak up on Danny when all of his senses were arranged at high capacity. He _appeared_ human enough, but it was exactly as it sounded; just an appearance. A facade. The both of them were. "You spoke to it."

Unamused, Danny fell into a defensive stance. "So?"

"Do you often speak to them?"

"Don't you?"

His arch nemesis looked him over from head to foot, brow furrowed. Danny, determined not to make the first move, forced himself to stay put. "Daniel." Vlad's voice was soft and full of concern. Danny found nothing in the world more irksome. "You're so thin."

"I go by Danny."

Vlad didn't give that any attention, coming closer to him. Sure, _now_ his feet made noise. "Are you eating enough?" He pressed. "You need to take care of yourself. Your ghost is only as strong as your human half. You need to eat more."

"My meals are usually interrupted. Like my sleep. And my homework. And, incidentally, my _vacations_."

"I genuinely wasn't aware you were here."

"Excuse me while I suspend my belief."

Evening was falling properly now, the light slipping from the sky. Danny bet he was missing out on campfire hotdogs and s'mores. He should be getting back. Danny took a step, towards camp, and Vlad shook his head. "I know it's hard for you to grasp, but I worry. About you, often. There's a whole lot about yourself you don't know."

Danny wasn't sure how he was meant to respond to that. "Reminiscing over never giving me the hybrid birds and the bees, Vlad?"

"Daniel, I am trying to be -"

"I know. You're trying. It's weird, please stop." Danny held up his hands. "From the bottom of my heart, fruitcake, I don't care. I don't know why you're here or what you're up to yet, but I'm gonna find out, because it's bad and apparently it's my job to babysit you from doing bad things. So, before I waste my whole week dancing around the subject, you might as well tell me what the hell it is you're up to. Make our lives easier."

"Land."

Danny blinked.

"I'm here to buy a land contract." Vlad replied flatly. "It's a perfectly legal and _human_ endeavor."

Danny rolled his eyes. He'd go into all of the reasons that was a cover-up, but then he'd have Tucker _and_ Vlad calling him paranoid - and Vlad was far more of an asshole when he said it. He shifted in the direction of camp. "I'm gonna go eat s'mores and practice methods of sleeping with my eyes open. Stop ruining my vacation."

"I'll walk with you."

Danny folded his arms tightly and took a full stride to the left when Vlad fell into step with him. It took work to keep himself from growling over his territory like some kind of animal; Vlad watched him struggle with mild amusement. "You're truly terrible at being a hybrid."

"I have it figured out."

"You don't listen to a single one of your instincts."

"I manage, Vlad. Stop trying to be my demonic-stepfather-mentor thing. It's creepy and unappreciated."

"Falls on deaf ears, more like." Vlad teased, heat suddenly surrounding the both of them, overwhelming. Danny grew uncomfortable with the taste of foreign ectoenergy stinging his eyes and getting under his skin. "At this point I'm giving you friendly advice at arm's reach; nothing more."

" _Wow_. Friendly advice is what's been punching me in the face all this time? Oh man. Boy have I been wrong. Count this relationship as vastly misinterpreted." Danny scrunched up his nose. "Will you _stop_ doing that? I can't breathe."

Vlad laughed and the hot, overbearing sensation of power drained from the air. "I don't like you, Daniel," he said, walking beside him amicably. The path ahead opened from trees into a wide expanse of hill and grass and bushes; the edge of the camp. "I'm coming to terms with not liking the only other thing in _existence_ that understands me. It's a lot of work, and I hadn't wanted to run into you. Being around you, Daniel, it's…unfair."

Danny stopped. Vlad waited, polite. "So _cloning me_ was your way of evening the playing field? That's how you're justifying it?"

"That wasn't a very healthy way of coping, Daniel."

"I never suggested you were healthy."

"Well." Vlad frowned. "I'm trying to be."

Danny had to process it, his heart beating more loudly than he assumed reasonable. "Are you…" He bit his lip, weighing the possibilities. It was too bizarre. "You're not like, in therapy, are you?"

"I don't believe that's your business." The forest was quieter than before, almost empty. The presence of two hybrids scaring off the living and the vastly territorial presence Vlad tended to carry with him got rid of everything else. Clouds drifted overhead, the sky dark and cool.

Danny glared. "It's totally my business. Everything you do ends up being my business eventually, if I like it or not."

"And vice versa?"

Danny shoved his hands in his pockets. They were still damp. Vlad proved impervious to the whole 'murder glare' concept, and was probably just manipulating a rise out of him. Or creating a distraction. Or something else that was more evil and ten times worse than Danny currently had capacity to imagine. "You know what? Fine. Do your creepy woods thing and don't tell me anything. I'll figure you out, Vlad. You can't stop me."

"I don't try to." Vlad smirked. Danny simmered. "Regardless, I look forward to it."

Danny moved towards camp again, disregarding how closely he was followed. "Wonderful. I'm going to go try and enjoy my vacation now."

"While sleeping with your eyes open?" Vlad mused.

"You bet your tooty-fruity ass I am."

* * *

He found Tucker manning the candy bars, as far from the bonfire as humanly possible, Danny slipped down next to him and collapsed against the picnic table as dramatically as he could. A hand rested on his back for a moment and rubbed, then went back to ripping open candy wrappers and breaking chocolate into cracker-sized bits. Their counselors seemed to have put everyone to work, and the boys who weren't assigned a specific task gathered to "watch the fire so it doesn't pop and burn things"; the counselors themselves had vanished to gather more firewood. Or deal with Vlad. Apparently that was a thing. Danny buried his head in his arms and breathed in the campy smells of smoke and sweat. "Can I have some chocolate?"

Tucker broke off a square and gave it to him, a symbol of peace and forgiveness. He was too exhausted to think of how they'd been arguing. Danny sullenly nibbled while watching Dash collect a ring of boys around the cooler. They were all lean, athletic, and wearing trademark stop-at-the-knee shorts. He was doubtless impressing himself as alpha and gathering together the strength and force of an army. Dash wasn't amongst friends; there were only six boys here from Amity, two of whom happened to be Danny and Tucker. It was slim pickings for familiar faces. The alpha wolf, separated from his pack, scavenging for a new following. "Tuck." Danny muttered. "What do you think Dash did to get roped into Algernon's Summer Camp for Boys?"

"Can't be sure, but I'm guessing it's not because he got caught dismantling his parent's weapons."

Danny flushed. "Yeah. That's probably not the case. Bet he didn't get caught sneaking in at two am, either."

"Oh my god." Tucker moaned. "They waited. By my window. How did they know to wait two stories up for me to crawl in like some kind of bandit? They just -" He bit into a full bar of chocolate, talking with his mouth full. "Parents. Think they know what's best."

Danny laughed. "Wonder what kind of trouble Dash got in. Or maybe he asked to come, maybe he _wanted_ this."

Tucker set an empty candy wrapper on Danny's head. "No way." Danny removed the wrapper and shoved it in a plastic bag full of other trash. "Dash hates change." Tucker continued. "Hates being told what to do, where to be, when to be there. He also put himself in an environment where he has to establish himself. He's been uncomfortable since he got here."

"Uncomfortable?"

"Just look at him."

Danny looked at him; the alpha male was doing some kind of pass-around drinks and tell jokes ritual. "I don't see it." He looked like the same smug, overconfident jerk Danny always knew.

"You're uncomfortable too." Tucker added. "But it's always like that when you leave the portal behind. You get all jumpy, and start worrying about stuff that's not a big deal, like you need to be home watching for all the ghost stuff." He stacked chocolate neatly on a paper plate, making sure all the squares lined up evenly. Organized, but in this heat, getting melty. "Is it your obsession?"

Danny pulled his eyes from the carefully stacked chocolate. He wanted to bury his head in his hands all over again. "I don't think so. I don't respond to Amity like the Box Ghost responds to boxes."

Tucker lifted his eyebrows, but Danny didn't want to talk about it. He wasn't jumpy, he was fine. Being away from Amity didn't change his mind into something he couldn't control, and ghost obsession was all _about_ losing control. And it wasn't like he didn't need to discuss his mental faculties. With anyone. Ever.

"Even Vlad has an obsession, though."

"It's different." Danny defended. "Vlad's more of a ghost than I am. I'm not obsessed with much of anything." He wanted to drop the subject, because when he thought about what he might be obsessed with it meant he had to face the idea that for some reason, because he was a ghost, he was a slave to a type of animalistic instinct. He was in control of his own mind; the instincts of a ghost had no tangible hold over him.

Tucker quietly stacked more chocolate. Danny realized, to his great embarrassment, there was a tinge of cold power sizzling in the air, making the hair on both of their arms stand up. Danny muttered an apology and pulled it back in, breathing slowly. Just when he thought he had a handle on things, it all seemed to fall away with the barest anxiety. His best friend wiped his fingers clean on a yellow towel. "Will you go put this chocolate in the cooler before it becomes a puddle?"

Tension faded, Danny sighed. "And deal with Dash? Can't I just zap it cold?"

"It's marshmallows and chocolates, not marshmallows and icicles. You're too much for this stuff. Just put it in the cooler; you owe me for using your creep sense."

He took the plate and muttered another apology. Balancing the paper plate in his hands, he made his way over to Dash Baxter and company. They were a lot like jackals, surrounding the ice chest protectively. Danny stopped and waited to be noticed, which happened too quickly. Dash adjust a black strap on his shoulder, protectively tucking a bag behind his back and looking Danny over like prey who had come with offerings of sacrament. "Hey." Danny kept his eyes on the ice chest. "I just gotta put this away. You know, before it melts."

He shifted from foot to foot. It was too silent. With a stifled sigh, Danny lifted his gaze to meet Dash's eyes. He felt under the microscope all over again. "You going hiking later, Fenton?"

Thrown, Danny tilted his head. "Huh?"

"Night hike. Tonight."

He shook his head. "I dunno, if it's on the schedule I don't think we have much of a choice."

"It's not on the schedule."

"Oh." Danny stared blankly at him. "Well, can you open the cooler?"

"Are you gonna come?"

"Me?" Danny sighed, realizing the alpha male was still hunting for a collection of followers. He must be truly desperate. "I don't think that's a great idea."

Behind Dash, there was an abnormally tall teenager with long hair that hung over his eyes. A skinny beanpole with high socks, but he held himself with privilege. "This is the kid?" His eyes were brown, he had a tattoo on his wrist. "He doesn't look like he's seen shit."

"Fenton's seen more shit than your fucked up occult grandma." Dash shot back coldly. "He's a ghost hunter."

Danny considered the thin ice Dash must be on; to be around people who aren't from Amity, who don't get a weekly reminder that ghosts exist, talking about them must be drawing him under fire. Consequently, it meant nothing good for him.

"You say that," the beanpole spoke, "but he doesn't look like he's seen _shit_."

Danny didn't want to get in the middle of this. He had enough ghost weirdness to deal with, he didn't need to be the camp's resident ghost hunter. "I'm just gonna put this away." He held up the plate, but Dash stepped defensively in front of the cooler.

"You're not gonna defend yourself?"

Danny shrugged.

"Fenton, he's saying you haven't seen ghosts! That they aren't real shit!" Dash was grossly offended.

He took a moment; a long, drawn moment, to pull in four seconds of air, and then eight more seconds to release it in one steady breath. May as well get this over with. "Fine. My parents are the world's most renowned ghost hunters. There is a portal to a second dimension in my basement. I've seen, fought, and been attacked by _plenty_ of ghosts. So, for your information," he shot the tall one a look, "I've seen plenty of shit, okay? Now, _open the goddamn cooler._ "

It opened. Hallelujah. Dash stole a piece of chocolate while Danny carefully placed it inside and snapped the lid shut. He turned around... completely surrounded by all of Dash's wonderful new friends. "So you're going hiking with us tonight?" Dash continued.

"No."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not." Danny folded his arms.

"We're meeting at the north end of camp, by the willow, after lights out." Dash pat his shoulder in a silent gesture that clearly stated _be there or I will drag you there_. "Bring your ghost stuff."

"All I have is a Fenton Thermos."

"Awesome."

Danny untangled himself from the cluster and went back to Tucker, who lifted his eyebrows and Danny just shook his head, collapsing next to him. "I think my enemies are planning to jump me all at once."

Tucker was attaching his phone to a mobile power cube. "I can trap Dash in an alternate dimension if we get desperate. At least, I think that's what I took from the lab before we left. It could also just be a dust vacuum."

"Knowing my family, I'd go with alternate dimension."

"It's usually my first guess." Tucker grinned. Danny rubbed his eyes, yawning. "Is it just me, or is this the least amount of supervision we've ever had at a summer camp?" Tucker nodded at the completely unattended fire by the picnic table. They hadn't seen a counselor in a while.

"Maybe it's because Vlad's trying to buy the place right now." Danny theorized.

Tucker sighed. "Of course. Fruitloop."

"Yup."

"I blame you."

"I accept the blame."

* * *

In the evening, the lake beside all the picnic tables had gone from a soft blue to a sickly black, lapping up against a rocky shore and turning into beach-like sand along a slope. The camp stretched from the lake to a hill, the cabin's now dark shadows against the dark sky, their fire in the middle of it, blinding him from seeing too far into the dark. Almost everyone had changed into pants to put up with the chill from the lake, and chatted in loose circles near the fire. Danny pretended to not watch Tucker play Temple Run while they waited for camp counselors to return with defrosted hamburgers, until he was caught and Tucker shifted to hide his screen from him. Danny nibbled on his lip. A pair of trout, just glimmering reflections of firelight, chased each other beneath and through the picnic tables. A low echoing of ghostspeak Danny wasn't being attentive enough to understand bounced between them. They swam in water that no longer existed and nipped at untouched boxes of graham crackers. Danny focused on seeing them more clearly. He breathed slowly. The fish twitched, noticing another spiritual presence and stopping. They hovered feet from him, dead eyes roving around while Danny adjusted his eyesight to see them like solid objects.

They defined slowly from transparent glimmers to white scales that flaked off when they moved. One of the trout was missing half its mouth, and the other had black, soulless eyes. Their gills opened and closed, pulling in nothing. They moved closer, fins flaring, trying to appear bigger and trying to fathom what Danny even was. His ectosignature was muted but it hummed with the vibrance and power of a full ghost.

" _Hey!_ "

The noise racked and echoed around his head, making him flinch, his ears incapable of comprehending ghostly sensory detail in his human form. Danny snapped his eyes shut, feeling all too much of the hand that fell on his back. He recalled his ghost, forcing it back. "Hey." Tucker whispered again. Just a whisper, as bare-bones as possible. "Your skin's starting to get translucent."

"Sorry." Danny muttered, pulling himself out of it. The fish were once again nothing but glimmers in the reflection of firelight. He blinked at Tucker. "My eyes glowing?"

"Nah. They were though." His best friend frowned. "It's getting too dark to use your ghost sight. People are gonna notice. What were you looking at?" He heard the silent _and why was it so important?_ tacked on the end.

"...Fish." Danny stated, propping his chin on the table and gesturing to them. Tucker squinted hard at something he couldn't possibly see. "They were playing."

"Kind of dumb putting a secret in jeopardy for fish."

"Couldn't help it."

Tucker sighed and put his phone away, picking at the table thoughtfully. "Look." His voice was thick and heavy with burden. "Something's up, Danny. You're not talking about it." He shifted, uncomfortable. "You know you can talk to me if something's... _wrong_ , right? I don't think I've seen you with control issues like this since... since right after you got zapped."

Danny snorted. "It's not _that_ bad."

"No, but it's similar."

He sighed, sitting upright. Malcolm, Tucker's councilor, joined the bonfire victorious with a box of hamburger patties to toss on a grill rack. He started instructing boys to help him set up and arrange buns and cheeses. Despite hearing every word as crisp and clear as if Malcolm were beside him, and the rustling of every blade of grass between, Danny felt distanced. Like the world, the whole world, was far removed from him. "I've been sensitive to noise and light and stuff for ages." He said softly. "But recently it's like my ghost is, I dunno, more active? Like the divide between what part of me is ghost, and what part of me isn't... it's like that gap's been getting smaller."

"Okay. Go on."

Danny shrugged helplessly. "I don't know how to put it into words. I'm kind of acting more ghostly? Like, uhm, today, when I saw Vlad; I had to hold back a growl. A real growl, in my _throat_."

"That's where growls come from." Tucker supplied unhelpfully. "What did Vlad do?"

"Told me I suck at being a hybrid."

"Bullshit."

"Yeah."

"When you decide to actually growl at him, let me know so I can get out my camera." Tucker rubbed his nose and watched Malcolm spread burgers on the grill with hunger in his eyes. "And maybe we can run some tests when we get home. Figure out your ectoplasm-to-blood ratio. It might've gone up?"

"Maybe."

"In the meantime." Tucker leaned back. "I'll do my best to keep you passing as human, remind you to stop glowing and putting ghost vibes out in the atmosphere. As ghost boy's best friend, that's kind of my job."

Danny flushed. "Thanks."

Malcolm walked between groups of boys, writing something down on a clipboard. He stopped and spoke with a couple of people, scribbled something, then moved on to the next group. When he got to them he looked at his clipboard for a long while, scribbled something out, then focused. "Hey. Either of you guys want cheese on your burgers?"

A flicker of a ghost fish caught Danny's attention. It plucked at Malcolm's sunglasses. "Yeah." Tucker answered for him. "We both do."

"Cool. Have you guys seen Troy?"

"I haven't." Tucker glanced at Danny and paled, shoving his elbow into his ribs. "And neither has Danny! You haven't, have you?"

Danny shook his head, the green lights dancing around his pupils faded. "Uh - nope."

"Damn." Malcolm, apparently still focused on the clipboard, scribbled something down and went on to the next group.

Tucker pulled his sunglasses from his shirt and handed them to Danny. "Dude, you're starting to worry me."

"What?"

"Your eyes went completely neon."

"They were?" Danny swallowed. "They didn't feel like they were."

"Just wear my sunglasses." Tucker coaxed. "We can go and find service to call Sam about it, alright?"

"What's she gonna do?" Danny put on the sunglasses.

"Yell at you, probably. Might work."

"Wow. Master of resources Tucker Foley."

They got to their feet, Tucker getting his phone out and checking for service. He was as disappointed about the lack of bars as he had been since they got here. "I think we'll have more luck getting to a direct line," Danny said, looking around. Malcolm was back to the fire, flipping burgers. It should be easy enough to slip away, since there wasn't any other type of adult supervision around, and it wasn't like they weren't experts at disappearing -

"Fenton!"

Dash had acquired seven followers throughout the day. He was now a force to be reckoned with, if he managed to stay on two feet and keep himself established. His credibility, however, seemed to hinge on the hot political debate of ghosts existing. Danny wasn't interested in getting caught up in this. "Fenton, you heard that one of the counselors is missing?"

Danny pushed his sunglasses up his nose; the need to growl crawling up his throat and he wasn't entirely sure if he had control over the brightness of his eyes. "I heard Malcolm ask around for him. Doesn't seem like a big deal." Behind them, the fire popped.

"You know what I'm thinking, Fenton?"

"No."

"Ghosts."

" _No_."

If it hadn't been for the beanpole, snickering in the background like he knew everything in the world, Danny doubted he would have got mad. Assholes he could deal with. Assholes refuting the existence of ghosts who insisted on dragging him into the middle of it he could not tolerate. Danny didn't growl, but he dropped a freezing presence into the air - the kind that sent chills up human spines, the kind that was meant to go with haunting suspense music and was followed by gruesome murders. The fierceness of his ghost half woke up in his veins, begging to morph, to show them _power_ and make them _shiver_. His ghost half nearly activated, nearly swathed him in bright light and triggered his change. Danny fought the instinct to become a ghost in skin as well as sensation.

The boys grew quiet, looking around at each other, and huddled closer together. They felt watched, psychologically attacked, by something they couldn't see. And it was Danny doing it, Danny assaulting them. Tucker put a hand on his shoulder; Danny focused on it, counting his breaths, making himself feel the air that pulled in and out of his lungs. The sizzling ghostly power filling the air faded away, drained until the boys were left with nothing but a vague sense of unease.

"Ghosts...aren't real." The beanpole said, mostly to himself, looking around for shadows that might come to life. "Right?"

Tucker snorted. "Tourist."

" _Shh_!" Dash was looking at the trees, the deep shadows thick between them. They fell quiet, and the mood Danny had begun earlier crept back of its own volition. Nothing stirred in the night. No breeze, no chirping bats, no rustle of bugs in the sand. All they had was their apprehension that something was wrong.

Danny cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "Food's done."

He gestured to Malcolm, who was beside the fire distributing hamburgers. Dash ran a hand through his hair and gave the beanpole a steady glare. "I wouldn't be too worried. It'll probably come to eat you before the sun rises."

"There's nothing out there!"

Dash smirked, like some kind of all-knowing guru, and stalked off. His new posse followed him, sans one. The beanpole rolled his eyes and stalked off to throw rocks at the lake. Tucker slipped an arm over Danny's shoulder. "Hey." He said softly. "Let me see?"

Danny raised the sunglasses. Tucker frowned, inspecting. "You're clear. Let's eat, I think it'll help."

"You're just hungry."

"Doesn't mean it won't help."

They fell into step with each other, getting in line beside a fold out-table full of plates and condiments. "You okay?" Tucker added, snagging two buns and drowning them in ketchup.

"I'm fine." Danny whispered, rubbing his neck. He suddenly wasn't hungry. Tucker made him get a plate, shooting him a look that said _eat or I make you_.

"You're fine, but you're not _o-kay_."

Danny put a limp tomato slice on his bun. "I'm _fine_." He waited in line, eyes drawn to the fire. It was warm, burning his skin, and though fire genuinely had no effect on keeping ghosts away, it definitely felt nicer to be around. Malcolm dropped a burger on his plate and Danny dropped beside the warm flame, sitting closer than most people dared, comforted by the warmth. His gaze drifted up to the sky, which was clearer than in the city. Tuck sat down beside him and for a minute Danny considered not bothering with Vlad or Dash and just enjoying the time he had here. "We should go stargazing tonight."

"If you keep me up until two am to see _five stupid meteors_ again I swear I'll shove you in the thermos," Tucker threatened easily, "and I won't let you out for a week."

"They weren't stupid! And there was way more than five, you just... couldn't see them with all the light pollution."

"Yeah, well, my impaired eyesight has nothing on your glowy glows, so…"

"Glowy glows." He rolled his eyes. "Why aren't you a poet? Your descriptions. So original."

Tucker nudged him with his elbow, shoveling food into his mouth. He said something with a mouthful of hamburger that was unintelligible but got the point across that Danny should stop being an ass. Danny only shrugged, munching. For a moment, he felt the most relaxed since he had arrived. Maybe Tucker was right, and all he really needed was a good meal to feel properly human and grounded.

Danny was about to launch into a full explanation about the importance of stargazing in good light when Malcolm burst into laughter. "Oh my god!" He pointed. "Troy!"

The boys collectively looked around, Danny following the direction of Malcolm's finger to the counselor. Troy was still in his croptop and shorts, but was missing one of his shoes. Water dripped from his chin and fingertips; algae clung to his shoulders, and smeared dark green over his collarbone. He stood there, perfectly still. Danny paled. "Where have you _been_ , man?" Malcolm chuckled and walked up to him. "You look like hell!"

Troy turned his head, slowly. He took a step that was awkward and stiff, like a marionette. Malcolm stopped, his smile fading. "Troy?"

Danny had time to calmly set down his hamburger.

Troy - or, realistically, whatever was possessing Troy - opened his mouth and let out a demonic screech, the likes of which sank down into the bones of the living, a paralyzing sound of terror and agony wrapped together. The possessed counselor moved, stalking Malcolm brainlessly.

Danny was on his feet. He didn't think. The ghost under his skin rose to strengthen him, his legs moved faster than they should have been able to; he leapt with the grace of a practiced warrior, tackling Troy to the sand and twigs before he could wrap his cold, wet fingers around Malcolm's neck. Troy hissed, rolling in the sand. Danny landed on his back, rocks digging into his shoulders. Troy was up, sand flying around him; he hissed, leaping on top of Danny.

His eyes were pitch black.

Danny grabbed at the freezing wrists whose fingers tightened on his throat, kicking and gasping. He tried to shove Troy off, but there was something _heavy_ inside of him, something that couldn't be lifted with the force of a ghost. Danny squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to stay human, fighting the urge to sink through the ground and fade away. His ghost half jumped up to help, but staying human only made it so that he heard the screaming and moving and heartbeats of everyone around him, putting his senses in complete overload. Danny was certain that if he opened his eyes they'd be brighter than the sun; everyone would know, so he kept them closed - even when the pressure on his neck made him lose all of his air.

Stars popped. He tasted salt.

Then nothing.

* * *

Here it _finally_ is. Get hyped.

.

 **Wait.**

A favor?

Let me know what you think while this goes. I'm learning how to write a novel, how to publish a novel, and how to write my next one. Feedback helps.

-Carrie

.

 _Up next:  
_ Excerpt 1  
 **Mystery Trio No. 1**  
 _A real actual paying job.  
_


	2. Mystery Trio No 1

Excerpt 1.

 **Mystery Trio No. 1  
** _A real actual paying job._

* * *

"Sleeping bags?"

"Check."

"Tent?"

"Check."

"Lanterns?"

"Check."

"First aid?"

"Uh…"

"If you forgot - "

"Here it is!"

Maddie nodded firmly and placed a final checkmark down on her clipboard. She set the checklist aside; from within the bed of a rust-marked yellow truck bed Jack began handing down supplies, and Maddie stacked them in neat rows on the ground. In the summer sun, freckles that had been nearly invisible over winter browned over her nose; Maddie adjusted her wide-brimmed hat over her head and tugged her long sleeves down over her wrists so that they covered the ends of her floral patterned garden gloves.

Maddie's skin only ever burned, and burned very badly.

When the truck was empty Maddie adjusted her clothes all over again, although the small exposed area of her collarbone was already stained red and a triangle of sweat marked the space between her shoulderblades. She leaned against the back of the beat up Ford, a truck donated from one of Jack's uncles in Wisconsin. "Well?" She smiled kindly down at him. "How are you feeling?"

He was dizzy just watching her stand and move in a world that was so close and so far away. "Ugh." Vlad groaned and threw his arm over his eyes so that he wouldn't have to stare at the vastness of a cloudless sky. His stomach twisted, he fought the urge to throw up -

Vertigo. Vertigo was true Hell.

A shadow fell over his face, cooling. He blinked until Maddie solidified over him. "You're going to get a sunburn," she said, setting a thin silver thermos beside him, "drink some tea."

"Tea won't help."

"How would you know if you haven't had any?"

He grunted. Jack dragged a raggedy old tent across the ground until he found a suitable spot overlooking the lake. With Maddie's help, Vlad sat up, and they watched Jack unpack poles and a massive stretch of canvas. The thought of standing made his head spin. "I should be helping."

Maddie adjusted her sleeves. She wrapped her arms around her knees and shrugged. "You can help when you feel better."

"What's your excuse?"

She smiled. Her lips were pale, like the rest of her. "I'm helping _you_ get better."

Vlad drank.

The tea was warm and tasted faintly of honey.

* * *

The lake, which was murky with clay residue when disturbed and clear when still, opened wide down a thin slope, and spanned miles wide to a line of trees on the other side. The water was nested between steep hills and sharp drops, collections of rough stone that hid just under the surface of sand; impossible to inhabit. The nearest town was downriver by two miles, and it had more cows than people. Their campsite was relatively flat and hard, but it was definitely an oddity compared to the thick forest on either side of them.

A weird place for a haunting.

Maddie proclaimed herself team boyscout and lit a fire as the sun kissed the tops of trees. She shed her long-sleeve shirt for a thin tank top, despite how wind picked up over the water and cooled the area. Whenever she dressed down, Maddie always seemed more free, her movements more fluid, her laughter more rambunctious, and her smiles brighter. She rubbed after-sun lotion on her tinted skin, set popcorn cooking over the fire, and warned Jack not to burn their dinner.

Vlad laid out southwestern blankets for everyone to sit on. Then he sat down in front of his camera bag and started unpacking, double-checking every scrap of equipment he owned, down to the scratches on the camera body. He owned a multitude of film types, although largely high ISO, as was appropriate for after-dark photography. He also had a number of high-powered flashlights - another necessity for light painting and scene setting.

Vlad liked making sure he had everything. He made sure before they left the University of Madison, Wisconsin, and twice on the eight-hour long journey to a small lake in a surprisingly mountainous region of southern Illinois. It terrified him to think that the one thing he had to contribute to this team was his equipment - unlike Maddie, resident mad scientist, and Jack, resident master engineer, he had no specific skill to offer. He was just. There.

Taking pictures.

Nearly valueless.

A heavy weight dropped on his shoulders, like dark hands rising from the deep; he squawked, and his camera just fell. It bounced off of his knee and landed lens-first in front of the fire.

" _Pfft,"_ Jack covered his grin. Vlad clutched his chest, breathing hard. He snatched his camera out of the sand and shot a glare over his shoulder. The blanket that Jack had given to him slipped off his back and he checked over his lens for scratches. "You're too jumpy," Jack accused.

"Not jumpy," Vlad muttered, deeply annoyed. He rubbed a glass cloth in small circles over the lens, constantly pausing to inspect the surface in the firelight. Was that a mark, or an eyelash hair? "I'm _reasonably cautioned_ to the situation."

Maddie shared devious looks with Jack. "So… _jumpy_?"

His cheeks burned. They were all thinking about the gas station, the cashier with the strawberry hair, and the ice machine. Vlad readied his camera; if he pressed it to his face they couldn't see him blush. _Click_. A still of Jack prodding the fire. _Click_. Maddie's bare hands plucking popcorn out of a pot. _Click_. A shot of the night sky that would doubtless come out black, but gave him an excuse to lay on his back. The woven blankets Jack provided scratched his arms and itched through his shirt. Vlad lowered his camera.

Stars filled the night sky, changing it from black to blue to purple.

"Think we're going to find anything?"

Every other time he'd asked this there had been a chorus of _yes's_ and _of course_ and _we're not doing this trip for nothing_. But now, in the reality of it, in the fading summer heat and the presence of soft water touching the lake shore, certainty didn't exist. "Well," Jack prodded the fire, his lips set in a frown that was very much unlike him, "at least it's a job. A real, actual, paying job." He rolled back his shoulders. "My grandpa always said that makes us professionals."

"Professionals at what?"

"That's easy," Maddie said. She pressed her lips together. The fire popped, dark smoke reflected its light high into the air. Maddie chewed on her dinner, stopping occasionally to poke the fire, thoughtful.

In the end, it was Vlad who sat up and spoke, "we're documentarians."

Maddie snorted, "no."

"Why not?"

"That doesn't involve the research, or the science behind the whole thing."

"Who says there's no research in recording stuff?" Vlad rubbed his neck. "And it's not like our research is very realistic - " her skeptical look blackened, "I mean, it's not proven, and it's mainly theoretical. We're going to prove it. Obviously." He flushed. Her almost-glare faded away. She went back to tending popcorn and Vlad relaxed.

"We're not making a documentary," she muttered, "we're _scientists_."

"Technically, you're the only scientist," Jack commented. He stared into the fire, having not moved at all, except that his frown may have gotten deeper and his shoulders tighter. The unstable firelight changed the shape of the shadows on his nose, and his very round face seemed almost hollowed by it. He met each of their eyes in turn, and got to his feet, grim. "I know what we are."

They waited, captivated by his presence; Jack searched the distant horizon - the wind tossed strand of his hair across his face. "We're ghost hunters."

A single unpopped kernel of corn burst open.

Maddie exploded, a deep laugh that came from her belly and echoed through the trees; it bounced back to them, a changed sound. She clutched her chest, shaking. "That has, nothing - " Jack's expression of complete forlorn despair only managed to set her off all over again. Maddie gasped. Her thin neck glowed orange with the firelight. _Click_. She relaxed on her elbows, looking up at Jack and beaming. "That's the least accurate definition I've ever heard. _Ghost hunting_ ," she snorted, "we're researching _wisps,_ Jack. Not taking to the woods with a rifle and a couple of snares."

Jack sat back down. "We're looking for them, though. That's a kind of hunting."

"And technically we _do_ shoot them," Vlad added, holding up his camera and focusing the lens on Maddie. She looked at him. Her hair orange, her lips curved slightly upward. _Click_. "Plus, it sounds cool."

Jack nodded.

Maddie glanced between the two of them and finally shrugged, leaning forward to poke at the fire some more. "...Alright," she relented, "it does sound a _little_ cool."

Vlad fiddled with his camera. There was a warmth in his chest, a kind of excitement that made the forbidding forest feel inviting, and upcoming hike and prospect of a ghost hunt - a real, actual ghost hunt - seem an invigorating conquest. For the first time that night, he stopped thinking about what skills he didn't have, and started feeling like a part of something that was bigger than him, bigger than all of them.

"So I guess we'd call this the first investigation of the Mystery Trio; Actual Professional Ghost Hunters, right?"

* * *

Tree bark dug into his back. The camera lens pressed tight to his eye. His arms tucked against his chest. "I think… I've got it." Vlad pulled in a careful, shallow breath, mentally checking if he was moving at all. Without a tripod, the margin for human error blurring a long exposure was exponential. "Alright - paint." _Cli -_ Maddie and Jack turned on their flashlights and rolled them over abandoned cabins; Jack focused on the bulldozer and half-formed foundations, Maddie directed her light on the site behind it, catching every building and the shadows between the trees. Vlad counted. _Twenty four, twenty five_... "Okay stop!"- _ick_.

He lowered the lens. "I think I got it." He let the camera hang around his neck and rubbed his eyes. "Anything else we should get?"

"How many more shots do you have?"

"Four, but I have plenty of film."

Maddie crossed the muddy road between them and the construction site to climb into the front seat of the bulldozer, sitting inside and pulling a box of cigarettes from her pocket. She set one between her lips and covered the end. The flash of her lighter struck her face in a warm, soft light. Vlad wished he'd still had his camera ready. "None of the accounts were at the cabins," the tobacco on the end of her cigarette glowed and dimmed. Maddie expelled smoke into the night air and shivered. "I think we've done enough of scene-setting. We'll probably see more activity down at the shore, where the accounts took place."

Jack rubbed his hands together and blew on them. Maddie nodded, "it's cold, Fenton."

"It's _summer_."

"Welcome to high elevation," she muttered. "Well. High elevation _plus_ ghosts."

"You need a jacket after all, city slicker?" Vlad added.

Jack made a face. Maddie hopped from the bulldozer and grabbed his arm, she then nodded at Vlad and pointed down the slope that stretched from the camp construction site down to the water. "Jack and I will go get a coat, if you go down and find a place to shoot from?"

"Alone?" Vlad blinked.

"You're the one who didn't bring a tripod and for some reason that means you need an extra twenty minutes to set up." Maddie smirked. "You're not scared, are you? I thought you were a professional?"

"I'm…" He wound his camera, flushing. She was teasing him, and he knew that, and he needed to focus on not getting a strange combination of embarrassment and butterflies. "I'm a professional," he stepped around them and started down the hill, "and I'm not afraid of anything!" he added over his shoulder.

Her laugh followed him.

The heat in his face didn't fade until Vlad arrived at the lake shore, where wind carried the sound of waves to him and the smell of swampish water took him back into reality. Vlad took a moment to untangle his hair from its tie and redo it into a braid that wouldn't feel loose or uncomfortable.

He found a collection of stones that stretched into the water and captured ripples between them. The sound of waves slapping stone echoed between the boulders. They were tall, almost as tall as his shoulders, and relatively difficult to climb on to - but it was the kind of perfect-height vantage point for a camera to set a scene, and without a tripod, he wasn't going to get much better. Vlad slipped the camera over his shoulder and hauled himself on top of one of the boulders that split the lake and the shore. He found a flat space on top of the rock and set it to point at the forest. After some fiddling, adjusting the shot to include a balanced image, there wasn't anything he could do until Maddie and Jack came back to paint light across the landscape.

He waited.

Just looking at the dark gaps between the trees began to make his skin crawl. Vlad clasped his hands together and swung his legs over the edge of the boulder, because there wasn't anything scary about forests. Or lakes. Or the water that now seemed too close to his feet, so close that anything under the surface might be able to reach up and untie his shoelaces. Vlad shivered, zipped his jacket up to his throat, and squinted across the vast lake.

Was that a campsite on the other side? A fire between the trees? He squinted. The shore on the opposite side was only a black smudge, barely discernible from the night sky. But something distant seemed to let off a dim glow, a flicker in the darkness.

 _Click_.

Vlad froze.

He looked over his shoulder, where the camera remained innocently balanced on top of the boulder. The Canon TX used a heavy manual shutter, the kind that was impossible to set off by _wind_ alone. He gingerly picked up the camera, blinking, sure he had wound it earlier; Vlad brought the camera up to his eye and hit the release. No sound. It wasn't wound anymore. "Okay." Vlad searched the beach, hot and cold all over. "Very funny." He squinted at the film count.

Only three shots left.

Vlad inspected the forest, his heart pounding in his ears. _Ghosts are a real and metaphysical remnant of consciousness. Not scary._ Maddie wasn't around to give her usual curt and dismissive reassurances. Memories would have to do. "You're wasting my film. Ha-ha." He wound the next shot and aimed his camera at the forest, peering through the lens.

There was a space between the trees that had been empty, but when he lifted the finder to his eye, it was empty no more. In the view through the lens a small white fawn stood at the edge of the forest. Its fur cast an unnatural light, its beady red eyes fixated on Vlad, on the camera, and watched. Its little legs moved nervously back and forth, though in truth they were only half legs, with no real hooves that met the ground. Vlad breathed very slowly.

 _Click_.

He took the shot this time.

The creature coiled, ears flat, and sprinted back into the forest without a sound. Vlad lowered the camera, his lips were numb, his throat clogged. He rasped to breathe. He wasn't entirely sure if what he had just seen was real. His stomach felt empty and heavy all at once, and all too suddenly the top of a boulder was simply too high of a place to be. He scrambled off of it, legs shaking when they hit the ground. He sprinted across the beach, leaving the waves and the surf behind.

He stumbled into their campsite, which was as empty as they had left it; the fire was banked over and cold, the tent devoid of life, and the truck sitting just exactly as they had left it. Jack's one and only jacket hung over the front seat, untouched.

His friends were gone.

* * *

Does anyone have any old best friends they're embarrassed to have known?  
Do you think that old best friend would have died for you?  
How about now?

-Carrie

Up next:  
 **Chapter Two: Teenagers are Idiots**  
 _(it takes one to know one)_


	3. 2 Teenagers are Idiots

**Teenagers are Idiots  
** _(it takes one to know one)_

* * *

2

 _Awake_.

Danny jolted. A hot rush of blood filled his head and burned his cheeks. He spun without moving, nausea mixed with a violent ectoenergy that threatened to overflow. Adrenaline spilled into his veins, his skin gained an almost transparent shine, and his core pushed to trigger his transformation. Danny bit down on the urge (and his tongue); the need to _change_ tingled in every fingernail and every breath. He smelled metal, electricity, and burned hair; a vile memory that triggered a spark. Danny rolled over and fought to stay human.

An awareness began, a kind of awareness with so much information it was an incomprehensible puddle of mixed sensation. Ghosts, being things out-of-touch with actual ears to hear and eyes to see, relied on advanced perception to function normally. A ghost in a human body, however…

Ectoenergy filled him from head to foot, both fire and ice, shivering and burning. Unable to place supremacy over what he needed to sense and what he typically never noticed, Danny focused on everything - and understood nothing. He ached to breathe with lungs that strained to expand. Sounds turned into painful popping and jet-engine screeching. Bones scraped against bone when he ground his teeth. His skin saturated with sweat to compensate for rapid temperature shifts. He floated in empty space, incapable of understanding where he might be or who might be around him. Danny felt, counted, and recounted every stitch of fabric rubbing against his skin. His eyes, though closed, burned with the simplest light seeping through his eyelids. His own heartbeat filled his ears, a panicked drum.

In the thick of it, something cold and unforgiving jammed his side. Electric heat - the real kind - ripped through his system, stealing his voice and crackling around his heart. Danny jerked reflexively away, his eyes flew open, black spots danced in front of his eyes. The lights dimmed, his skin turned pink and opaque, the pressure in his throat vanished.

Danny touched his chest. Blood thumped, a coldness faded. His core went silent; a weight left his shoulders, the stimulus gone. Danny dropped his hands. Blankets. A ceiling above. Warm light.

When had he wound up in his dorm?

"Three hours, Daniel." Vlad tucked the maximus into his blazer.

Danny coughed. Alone with Vlad; _wonderful_. His throat burned, a headache formed at the base of his skull; it was both mildly disappointing and unsurprising that he'd have to add electrocution to the day's list of activities. "You _tazed_ me." He wanted to curl up on his side and never move; despite that, Danny pushed himself upright. His muscles twitched with aftershock.

Vlad cleared his throat. He sat in a folding chair in front of the bed, his glossy clothes and carefully trimmed beard out of place in a cabin that carried the faint scent of marijuana. "I _helped_ you."

"Don't call it that." Danny rubbed his throat, his hand twitched too much to be of much help. It fell back into his lap. "You don't know how to help people."

Vlad lifted an eyebrow. That look. Danny considered if he had the strength to punch people. His arms hung from his shoulders like deadweights. If he threw his entire upper body into a hit, it could land. He should have at least _one_ solid suckerpunch in him.

Vlad took his wrist. Danny discovered that, no, he didn't have so much as a punch in him. He lacked the smallest strength to pull away. "How often do you lose control?" Vlad asked, checking his watch and pressing his thumb into Danny's wrist.

Technically, Vlad didn't _need_ to be punched. There were plenty of ways to respond, and Danny made a mental note to dedicate at least three days to egg the fruitcake's house. Separate occasions. Hottest days of the summer, so the yolk really has a chance to cook in. "Give me my hand back."

"Daniel."

"I _don't_ lose control." He squirmed. Vlad let go and Danny nearly sank back down on the bed. He pulled up his knees and locked both arms underneath them. Vlad gave him that look, the one with the eyebrow and the condescending _I-know-best_ attitude. Danny took a shallow breath. He could do this. Just focus on snark, don't get too high pitched, really put effort into sass. "I didn't need you to _electrocute_ me. I could have ridden that out, and I would have been fine. I know you like to _think_ I need you, and it's really sad, and I think you should seek professional help."

There. That probably didn't come off as rehearsed.

Vlad scowled. A wave of nausea swept over Danny. He paled. He could throw up right now, all over that stupid blazer. Vlad had a button on his jacket that was a slightly different color than the others. Danny stared at it, trying to center himself, and realized only a little late that Vlad was still talking, "-self control is more important than your pride. Your negligence risks us _both_ , it speaks to self preservation to teach you to control yourself."

"Wow. Lessons with you. I'd rather be dead."

"I can arrange that."

"You'd only half-ass the job." Danny folded over, head spinning. His desire to vomit on Vlad was replaced with a desire to not vomit. _Please_. His stomach rolled and he grit his teeth to talk through it. "Get it? Half-ass? _Hah_."

A wrongness fell on his shoulders, heavy, thick. It sank under his skin and made his hairs stand on edge; the sharp physical tang of ghostly energy filled his lungs. Danny clenched his teeth and commanded his stomach to stop rolling - it didn't - but it gave him something to do. Vlad, the source, didn't so much as glow; his skin remained as dark and matte as always. _Flaunting his 'balanced' control_. "Oh, I'm _so_ scared," Danny snorted. "Really Vlad, don't hold back with the spoopy bullshit. I definitely won't throw up all over your eight hundred dollar jeans."

The power faded. "They were only two hundred. I'm rich, not frivolous." He dusted them off. "You _need_ to be more careful. There's more to you than a little bit of overstimulation and ectoenergy."

"Yup. It's called a ghost." His stomach finally, blissfully, calmed down. He pressed his face against the pillow that hadn't been unpacked when he last left the cabin. "I've been dealing with it for a couple of years now, and even though I'm not full of creepy party tricks like _you_ \- " a shiver raced down his spine, "I'm doing fine. But, hey, as usual, if I decide to go the evil fruitloop route you'll be the first person I call." He bared his teeth in mockery of a sweet smile.

Vlad winced. He touched his ear in a rare moment of vulnerability; a beat later Danny also heard the distant ring of sirens.

"Ghost ears, Vladdy?"

"At least _I'm_ in control." Vlad's human body blurred at the edges, his skin and clothes and hair shifted into a transparent haze, the physical reality of _Vlad_ dissolving until he was gone. Danny rubbed his eyes. He wanted desperately to pull a blanket over his head until the sun rose and sleep far beyond that. It's not so much of an exhaustion as a bodily expectation; leave Amity, get four minutes of rest. Is that so hard?

Against his will, the cabin door swung open. Malcolm's hot pink GO tanktop contrasted his very dark skin. The counselor lifted his sunglasses. "You're awake."

 _No, I'm asleep. Dead asleep._ Danny nodded.

"Paramedics are going to check you out."

"Great."

Malcolm pressed his lips together, produced a phone from his back pocket and stood back. A pair of EMTs entered the cabin. The first of them, a short Filipino woman with a bun of curly hair and blue scrubs scanned the empty beds. She nodded to Danny, "Is this him?" She spoke in a clipped East Coast accent.

"Yup." Malcolm inched to the door.

The EMT walked to the bed adjacent to Danny and set down a plastic case, then unhooked the clasps to reveal foam padding and a machine shaped like a classic universal remote. The door closed, Malcolm left without notice. "My name is Danika," she said, slipping on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. "This is Donna, she's going to look at your neck."

Donna towered over Danika. Her uniform mirrored her partner, though her platinum blonde hair stood out against the light and framed her face. Her skin was black, her name badge sported a sticker of a train from a children's cartoon, and her eyeliner was perfectly winged. She was beautiful, focused, and crouched in front of Danny with nitrile gloved hands extended. He lifted his chin; her fingers were cold.

He wasn't used to someone being colder than he was.

"What's your name, dear?" She asked. He twitched, she apologized. Her coworker pulled the remote from the foam case and flipped it over.

"Danny."

Donna had warm breath and brown eyes. Her smiles were very small. "Your full name?"

"Uh. Fenton, no, _Daniel_ Fenton. Sorry." Danny breathed faster when she pressed her fingers to his neck for a pulse, a standard reaction to try and convince his heartbeat to be more obvious.

"Where were you born?" Donna continued, checking her watch. She seemed to catch nothing out of the ordinary and released.

"Minneapolis, Minnesota."

Danika muttered something under her breath and shook the remote, flipped it over, then flipped it again and grumbled. Donna moved some of her curls from her face and checked Danny over. "You grew up there?"

"Not for very long. I'm from Amity."

She nodded, lips pressed. "Then this whole event must have been business as usual for you, right?"

He flushed. "What? Ghosts?"

Behind them, Danika grit her teeth. Her face flushed and she tapped at the remote. "I can't get it to turn on."

Danny recognized the embossed F on the back of the remote. He relaxed. "It's the button on the right side. All the ones on the front are for collecting and scrolling through data."

Donna prodded his neck, checking the bruises. Danika paled, but Donna remained calm. "What's your birthday, dear?"

"April third, 1998."

"How would he know how it works?" Danika's tiny hands directed the remote at Danny.

Donna glanced over her shoulder. "Didn't you hear his name? Fenton. I think he might know what a Fenton ecto-trace scanner is."

" _You_ made this?"

"My mom did."

"Oh." The remote beeped. Danika bit her lip and tapped the data screen, scrolling. Danny closed his eyes, almost thankful to have been zapped (not actually) and slumped on the wall. A hand touched his shoulder. "We need you to be awake, now." Donna's voice was both kind and soft. "Okay? Why don't you tell me what's hurting."

 _Everything_.

Danny lifted and dropped his shoulders. "Nothing. I'm just tired."

She gave him a skeptical look. "You've got bruises on your neck."

He plucked at his blanket. It was a quilt that his grandma purchased when her dementia started to get bad and she would go to the store every week and buy new blankets. Where his parents had wanted to get rid of them, Danny offered to store them all in his closet. Years later, he still had most of them. Quilts were surprisingly good at soaking up ectoplasm and blood. "I guess my throat hurts a little. But it's not bad. I mean, I'm talking."

"You're sure?"

"Don, he's at _twenty three_ percent." The EMT looked at him with a panic in her eyes, frozen. "Is he - is he one of _them_?"

Donna shrugged. "Doubt it. Ghosts don't have a sense of time or place, and he told us his birthday and where he's from." That fact was incorrect, ghosts definitely had a sense of time and space, just in a different context to humans. Danny didn't correct her. She straightened and checked the monitor, nodding. "You can go double-check." Her partner did not move. Donna sighed and pulled a small flashlight from her back pocket and crouched in front of him. "Keep your eyes open?" Danny did. The light stung. "See? No sparks, no glow, no reaction. He's not possessed." Donna slipped the flashlight back into her pocket. "You can check the manual if you want to be sure."

Danika left in a hurry. Donna raised an eyebrow at Danny. "Twenty three percent, huh?" She put her hands on her hips.

"I…" Danny tangled his fingers in the blanket, "uhm. I'm…"

"A Fenton. I know," she smiled, "I transferred to the countryside out of Amity General. We first tested those scanners on your father… I believe he was a thirty seven? The manual suggested we put him in a quarantine."

Danny huffed. "That's dad for you." He hesitated, "I'm not going into quarantine, am I?"

"No." She removed her gloves. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

Even when he could tell his smile was fake he couldn't fix it. "I'm fine."

* * *

The white business card had a simple blue embossed logo with an address and phone number. He ran his thumb over the universal symbol for _hospital_ in the top left corner; Danny wondered why two snakes intertwined around a pole meant medical care. He flipped it over and reread the extension Donna had jotted down for him. Just in case he needed to contact someone from home, someone who wouldn't freeze at the thought of ghosts lurking in the shadows.

Malcolm, Jason, and another counselor with long black dreadlocks whom Danny hadn't yet met huddled together under a lamp by the mess hall. They drank gatorade and ignored all of the campers around them; an exhibition of both rattled bewilderment over what happened and negligence for their jobs. Danny didn't necessarily blame them. Many of the campers formed clusters of their own and talked in hushed voices. One by one they stopped when Danny passed by. Whispers followed him. His throat tightened, he picked up his pace.

Dorm three was a dim orange cottage against the yellow haze of lamplight. Danny knocked on the door; his wrist pinged. He rubbed it, wanting the ache to go away. Being fully human made pushing away pain unnecessarily difficult. At the window, a curtain opened and fell; the door opened. Danny had to tilt his head back to meet Dash's eyes. "Hey," his voice cracked, "is Tuck in?"

" _Finally_." Dash grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. "Where have you _been_?" He snapped the door shut and stacked a chair up against it. Dash checked outside again, scanning the shapes of campers outside; he and Tucker were the only two who had retreated to the safety of cabin three. Freshly laid out sheets and sleeping bags lined empty beds. The room smelled obnoxiously of _Foley_ , by Tucker Foley. Tucker armed the room's only bedside table with two cans and grinned at Danny. "Antighost antiperspirant is gonna be a hit! Ten bucks a can?"

"Don't you only have those two?"

"They smell _awful_." Dash added.

Tucker made room for Danny to sit next to him. "I'll hike up the prices as the stakes get higher. You okay? The ambulance was outside your cabin for _ages_."

"I…" Danny rubbed his neck, sinking down beside Tucker. He ached all over. His body felt...empty, hollowed out, like something important was missing and all the pieces that usually held him together were undone. Voices weren't as clear, moods weren't obvious, and he had a mysterious feeling that if he squinted he could see the cracks in the wall across the room in great detail. Danny squinted. Nothing changed. He slumped.

"Give him some goddamn _room_ , Foley." Dash tossed a bottle of water into Danny's lap and pulled up a cracked old folding chair to straddle. He propped his elbows on the back of the chair. Danny lifted the water as if it might contain some kind of poison, confused. "I always get thirsty after I'm overshadowed," Dash explained, "cottonmouth is _literally_ the worst."

Danny gave it a moment to sink in. He held his breath and counted down from six; at one, he released a long sigh. "I wasn't overshadowed?"

Tucker elbowed Danny, understanding the questions Danny didn't ask. "Dash pulled Troy off you. _Apparently_ , according to jock lore, that means you two are buddies now. But fear not," Tucker dipped over the edge of his bed and rifled through a worn duffel bag until he pulled out crinkling wrappers. Two granola bars landed in his lap. "I know the real way to your heart is with food. Eat."

He wasn't hungry but he pulled apart a wrapper.

"It's been crazy outside." Dash leaned in; he clasped his hands and grew serious. "Couple kids got in a fight."

"Huh."

"I guess ghosts are a hotly contested subject around the camp now," Dash added, "some people can't take it, you know? Challenges their way of thinking." He frowned and considered the hardwood floor with intense focus. "...You think whatever took him over is gone?"

"Dunno." Danny set the granola bar aside.

Tucker unplugged his phone from its charger and leaned against Danny's shoulder. He yawned, but Danny understood that he was supposed to look at the screen. _You're not glowing right now, but put on my sunglasses just in case_.

"You caved and got Animal Crossing?" Danny replied, taking the phone while Dash started a one-man conversation about the persistence of poltergeists. _Ghost powers inactive. Vlad hit me with a taser._ He typed in, missing a key here and there. Vlad autocorrected to 'fruit-o-looms' twice before he got it to type properly. _Still not sure what he's doing here. Didn't get a chance to ask_. Tucker sighed the moment he got his phone back. "That sucks," he replied to both Dash and Danny, "but I don't think playing quarterback in a game where half your team's been overshadowed makes you the authority on ghosts."

"Foley. I _am_ the authority. Who else takes charge when ghosts come to tear up the gymnasium? _Lancer_?" Dash rumbled. "No one else here has the experience I have."

Danny blinked. "Wait," he sat up straighter, "what happened to Troy?"

"Police carted him off." Dash waved his hand dismissively. "Although I'm not sure what _possessed them_ to think they could get an exorcist at this hour."

There was a heartbeat of indecision. Tucker's face went from comprehension to despair and Danny paused. He replied on instinct alone. "I guess they were just really _high spirited_ cops."

"No," Tucker moaned, shoving his face into his hands. "Stop."

Dash smirked and relaxed in a way that was foreign to Danny. "They _exorcised_ restraint when arresting him."

Danny's throat itched. His voice cracked. Talking hurt, but some things were worth it. "They must have been some _dead serious_ officers."

"Stupid puns are not a requirement of Amity Park citizenship," Tucker cut in quickly, "nobody thinks it's funny anymore."

"Phantom does it." Dash rolled his eyes. "Are you trying to say something about Phantom?"

Danny nodded very seriously. "Yeah. _Phantom_ does it."

Tucker glared. "Phantom started a horrible trend."

Danny straightened. "Could you say we're… beating it to _death_?"

"That's it! Get out! I'm terminating our friendship!"

He laughed, falling backwards and throwing his arms up in surrender when Tucker hit him with a pillow. His headache hadn't changed; it banged as loudly as ever. His limbs still ached and jerked reflexively. Nothing hurt _less_ , but in a moment everything became more bearable. The hollow emptiness in his chest still needed time to collect enough energy for his core to wake back up, and when it did these aches and pains would dull. But being fully human wasn't all _that_ bad.

At least he felt warm.

Danny sat up and smiled at Tucker, then picked up his forgotten granola bar and proceeded to eat it, ravenous. He reclined on the wall and kicked his feet over the edge of the bed. "So. Dash. You still going on that dumb night hike?"

Tucker frowned. "What hike?"

"You're not invited."

Danny peeled the plastic off his second granola bar. "Yes he is."

Silence. Dash's face had become all scowl and no play, but he relented. "Fine. But _you're_ still coming."

Tucker made a face that resembled something along the lines of eating too many sour skittles. He adjusted his glasses and hid behind his phone; Danny understood this to mean his best friend was listening intently.

"Why me?" He finished the granola bar; raisins, a disappointment when the one before it had been full of chocolate. "You've never needed me to help you seem cool before."

"Gross." Dash crinkled his nose. "I still don't."

"Isn't that why you invited me?" Danny pressed, very sure of his reasoning. "I have all the ghost stuff. You want to prove to people that ghosts are real."

"Troy already did that." Dash folded his arms. "You're coming because _there are ghosts_. I haven't forgot the last time our class went camping and everybody walked out of the woods three days later with dry throats and no memory. I'm not interested in losing more days of my life. You have all that anti-ghost stuff. I don't want… I don't…"

Tucker choked off a laugh as fast as he could, covering his mouth and failing at hiding his shit-eating grin. "You want a bodyguard. You want _Danny Fenton_ to be your ghost bodyguard."

"Can it, Foley!"

Tucker removed his hat and prepared a speech. "Oh Dash," he began, "I literally could not describe the layers of irony, but if I could I'd make a cake with it - " Dash threw a pillow at his face.

Danny stifled his laughter. He ran a hand through his hair, filled with a reckless energy. "Alright." He dangled his feet over the bed, swinging them. His voice continued to crack when he spoke, but Danny couldn't shake the rush of giddy energy. There was heat in his fingers, and clarity in his head, and he wasn't burdened with an unnatural chill. "Night hike. I'll bring my thermos, the ghost hunting one. For ghosts."

Tucker shoved his phone at him, not even remotely as sly as he had been before. Danny caught the gist of 'bad idea' and pushed the screen away. He felt good. "We can be the Humans Against Poltergeists squad."

"Or we could not call it that," Dash replied. "Ever."

Danny plucked at Tucker's quilt. "...The Specter Suspecters?"

"Stop."

* * *

Weeds filled the space between cracked flagstones that lead down to the lake. Many of the stones were loose, broken, or uneven. Danny adjusted his backpack, but the position of the bag didn't matter. The thermos inside froze through the fabric and chilled his spine. Danny understood why Tucker and Sam preferred he be the one to carry it. Thistles and dry grass caught his jeans with such force that Tucker constantly caught his fall. "It's so _dark_ ," Danny complained.

"There's a half-moon and it's not that cloudy," Tucker reasoned, "you need to adjust."

"Ugh." Danny rubbed his eyes. Nothing about the path grew brighter. "I forgot how annoying it was to have _human_ eyes."

"We could plan our revenge on Vlad." Tucker suggested. "Like we could plant carnivorous, ghostly venus fly traps in his pillows or something."

"I was thinking set his house on fire. Clean and simple arson."

"Mmm. Good one, very original."

Tucker steered him around a cluster of thorn bushes. Danny half stumbled and gripped Tucker's jacket; his feet sank in the soft ground. "That's - " he carefully eased over a wobbly rock, "the fun of it, though. Fire; a true classic."

Tucker paused. "Are you okay?"

Danny steadied himself and stopped. Tucker bit his lip, "You just seem different. Maybe… look at how your emotions change when you get your powers back."

Danny frowned. "I'm the same as I have been all day."

"Cheery? That's how you'd describe yourself today?" Tucker gestured at the path that Danny could hardly keep steady on. "You offered to go hiking with Dash. For fun ghost times. Since when is that a _normal_ thing for you to do?"

Danny let go of Tucker's jacket, deciding he didn't need the extra help. He pressed his lips together and thought about what he needed to say next, and why he needed to say it. Something in him reacted, defensive, _offended;_ it put a bad taste in his mouth. "Maybe since my best friend called me paranoid, or since I was strangled and subsequently electrocuted. Maybe I'm being cheery because I need to feel something that isn't _helpless_ , Tucker." Danny stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I want to get to the bottom of what's going on. Why Vlad is here, why Troy got overshadowed, and - I'm going on a dumb night hike with Dash because wherever there are _idiot teenagers_ poking through the woods there are _ghosts_. Even if I can't be Danny Phantom right now, Danny Fenton still has the same obligations. Same guy, same job."

Tucker considered. He relaxed. "There he is, there's the paranoid Danny I know best." He linked arms with him, refusing to let Danny stumble down the slope alone. "It's good to see you acting normal."

"Didn't know I had to act."

"Liar. You're _always_ acting," Tucker waved it off, "but it can't be helped."

Danny scowled, starting back down the path. "Mm. Well. Ghosts to hunt. Plans to foil. If we get the creepy stuff done tonight that leaves six days to have a _real_ vacation."

"Long odds."

"I know."

The path flattened out between the beach and forest. A square light illuminated Dash's face, as he clearly didn't understand that sneaking out meant _actual_ sneaking. He sported a black bag over his shoulder and flipped through his phone with a bored expression. Danny approached, a mixture of frustrated and vaguely interested. "That won't get anyone's attention."

Dash slid the phone into his back pocket, the bag on his shoulder shifted awkwardly; three poles stuck out of the top. "You're late."

"Me and everyone else," Danny checked back up the hill, "where's the rest?"

"You're _late_ , Fentina."

"Wow, you're so good at answering questions."

Dash shrugged. "Shut up and let's go before anyone catches us."

"Wait, alone?"

"Yes, alone, obviously," Dash snapped.

Tucker, perhaps just as bewildered but by far more observant, asked, "what's in the bag?"

The temperature around the waterfront dropped. Volleyball nets, wound up on poles and swinging in invisible breezes were like thick spider webs. They creaked on metal clasps. Danny turned up his jacket collar, hair standing on edge. It wasn't every day _he_ felt unnerved by the creeping atmosphere of _inhuman_. How Sam and Tucker withstood it for as long as they had astounded him. Dash fiddled with the strap on his shoulder. "It's a camera, Foley." His tone had changed to match the atmosphere, his voice low and careful. "It's for school."

"It's summer."

"I'm planning ahead," Dash scowled, "what, now all of a sudden you're too scared to go?"

Danny frowned. "I thought you _didn't_ want to run into ghosts." He did not add that they were by far more likely to run into something at home than out here, but Dash seemed uninterested in hearing more. He turned his back to them. "Either you're coming or you're crawling back, but you're already out here, so…" Dash entered the forest.

Tucker stood still. "Are we really?"

Danny sighed. "We _are_ already out here. What's the worst that can happen?"

"Never say that." Tucker zipped up his jacket all the way and followed Dash, but he stayed close to Danny. He accepted Danny's decisions as quickly and without question just as he did during combat; a trait that Tucker excelled at, Sam struggled with, and Jazz simply didn't understand. The trees sheltered them from colder wind, and the ground crunched under their feet. Danny enjoyed the simple task of moving through unmade paths, so much so that it wasn't until they dropped far back enough for Tucker to whisper did his mood change.

"Since when has Dash wanted to follow ghosts?" Tucker muttered, using the flashlight on his phone to light the way.

"Since he decided he was an authority on them?" Danny guessed. "Maybe after Troy he thinks… like we do. Find and subdue it before it gets worse."

"Then what's the camera for?"

"...Evidence… that he's seen… shit?" The beanpole who'd accused Danny of never seeing anything came to mind. The anger he felt in response to confrontation - the ghostly energy that simmered under his skin - was foreign in retrospect. Maybe Dash just needed to be validated as badly as Vlad did, in the kind of way that he'd do a number of reckless things just to get a response out of people. They paused inside of a collection of basalt stones that rose from the ground in massive shelves, cliffs that threw off the trees and formed caves and crags in boulders. "I feel like I've seen Dash with a camera before, right? Last year he was doing some project with Kwan."

"He did an interview project with Nasty Burger employees." Tucker shrugged. "That's all I remember."

"I thought I've seen him with one somewhere else..."

"Hey!" Dash appeared around a boulder, "What are you doing?"

Danny pointed up the stones. "Climbing? Finding caves, ghost hideouts…"

"No, no, we're not going there." Dash slipped his bag from his shoulder and crouched. "We're not going to waste the two hours of charge I've got on _searching_." He pulled out the poles that stuck up from his bag; a tripod. "What we need is _this_." Tucker's flashlight focused on what Dash pulled out next. A pastel pink journal, trimmed with white lace and faded sharpie.

Danny recognized it from somewhere. Tucker nearly dropped his phone.

"Dash," Tucker whispered, "Why do you have that?"

Dash ran his hand over the journal. Danny gripped his backpack, reminded of the thermos inside. He quickly got it out; the cylinder froze to his fingers. "Dash?" Danny ventured.

Dash shook his head and got ahold of himself. He straightened, the journal pressed to his chest (it was so _familiar_ ). "We've only got enough battery to film two hours, so, let's get started." He nodded at Tucker, "You set up the tripod on the flat plane, Fenton, you get some stones for the circle."

 _Circle_.

Danny remembered the journal.

His hand fell to his thigh. The book belonged to Paulina; she coveted it more than anything. He learned its purpose the night that he woke in a cold sweat, nauseated and sick; words that weren't words but _commands_ yanked on his bones. _The hot sizzle of his transformation put a taste of metal and electricity in his mouth, it agonized him to change form as vividly as falling inside of an activating portal. His room vanished, he sunk to his knees in a sweltering garage, surrounded by candles, locked in a circle that couldn't be passed._

The tattoo on his thigh burned with the memory of Sam dragging him to a shady tattoo parlor, paying a handsome bribe at the 18 and older sign, the anti-summoning sigil hastily inscribed and then reinforced over and over while his almost inhuman skin attempted to reject the ink and heal over the scar minutes after it was made.

"Summoning." Danny understood.

Dash flipped open the notebook like some casual observer of the apocalypse. "I know what I'm doing, Fenton."

"Summoning," Danny repeated, cold terror sent a shiver down his spine. " _Summoning_." Tucker, ever faithful, stood beside him with the same exasperation. "Summoning." Danny told him, and Tucker shook his head.

"You wanted to go hiking. Something about responsibility, paranoia, getting it all out of the way now… six days of a real vacation…"

"Summoning!" Danny threw his hands in the air. It wasn't the cold quiet of his usual anger, or the calm control of a fight. A dam broke, fear became fury, fury became outrage. "I've got a great idea! Let's just take it a step further and open an entire portal, right here! Let's tear holes in the fabric of reality! Why don't we call up some demons, do a few blood rituals, let's invoke the wrath of the spirits of the forest! Why not; it's almost the witching hour, isn't it?" Danny turned on Dash. "Why not throw open the gates of Hell and throw a party? Clearly, this vacation isn't fun enough yet!"

"Technically the witching hour isn't until three am," Dash corrected, unamused. "Calm down, Fenton."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Of course Paulina would chose now to start dragging her friends into this sort of thing. Of course Dash would decide to play ghostbuster filmmaker with it. Of course. Why would he ever expect any less of _Dash Baxter_?

"Fenton." Dash wasn't even _ashamed_.

"Yes, Mr. Dumbass Baxter Sir?"

"Relax." Dash rolled his eyes. "You have your ghost catcher, I can contain it, we'll be _fine_."

"I don't hunt ghosts for hits on _youtube_."

"You don't hunt ghosts at all." Dash shot back. Tucker sighed, an exaggerated sound full of melancholy, irresistibly dramatic. Danny appreciated it.

He held up the thermos and tossed his backpack over his shoulder. "Wow Dash, you're _so_ right." He shoved the thermos into Dash's arms, wearing a grin that felt as crazy as it looked. "I don't hunt ghosts, do I? That's you! You're the big authority on them!" He shoved off and left the thermos in Dash's arms, "It's point and shoot, when something tries to eat you press _this_ button. Don't lose the lid, alright? It's a pain to ectoproof new ones." Danny spread his arms and dropped into a bow. "There! Now you don't need me! Have fun with your dumb summoning _bullshit_ , Baxter."

He spun on his heel and marched. Tucker followed.

"Are you serious?" Dash's voice echoed after them, horribly offended. Oh well. "You came all the way out here! Fenton!"

Danny waved his hand high in the air. "I'm a wuss, sue me!" He marched, Dash's voice echoed after them, but not his feet. The nice human warmth in his blood boiled with rage that had no proper outlet, a headache he'd been ignoring returned with force. _Summoning_. As if he didn't have enough to worry about. He picked up his pace, rocks crashed into his toes. Danny cursed at anything that dared to slow him down. He hit something that took him off his feet and he nearly vaulted into the forest floor, but Danny only picked up his speed. He ran, his lungs burned, his eyes stung, his legs ached.

He ran until he crashed head-first into a low-hanging branch. Danny tore at it, leaves filled his palms. Tucker found him in battle and laid a hand on his back. "You need to slow down."

"Make me!"

"Danny." Tucker pulled a leaf out of his hair. Danny watched it flutter away, breathing heavily; Tucker took his hands and coaxed Danny to relax his fingers. Leaves slipped from his palms in broken clumps. Danny was so used to sensing and replicating Tucker's calm that his shoulders slumped and his heart slowed out of habit. Drops of green energy tried to surface in Danny's pupils, not nearly charged enough to make a spark. "I'm not telling you how to react." Tucker stepped closer, they shared warmth. "I just don't want you to wake up tomorrow with more bruises than necessary."

The lake kissed the shore, nearer to them now, and its soft whispers got into his head. Danny closed his eyes and unclenched his jaw. He breathed in the humidity. The chill. His arms fell, he relaxed. When he opened his eyes they were wet with something he had no control over. He wiped it away. "I just…" Tucker's hands were warm, reassuring. He leaned into them, his lips parted, concern turned down the corners. Danny wanted to sink to the ground, but stayed upright to keep Tucker from worrying.

"I do so much," he whispered, a confession that Tucker already knew; it bubbled up against Danny's better judgement, "I lose my grades over it. I'm in detention a million days out of the year. I'm hunted by my family and my friends. I get my ass handed to me. I don't sleep, I don't eat, I can't feel things the same way that I used to… I do so much for that _toad_ and he's _summoning_ them." A whisper in the back of his head reminded him that this wasn't Tucker's problem, that he needed to stop talking about it, that there was no fixing what was. Danny couldn't make himself stop, "Like my job's not hard enough? Like I haven't had enough yet? Just give Fenton more hell, right? It's fine, he's dead, he can take it."

At _dead_ Tucker pulled Danny into his arms. Danny's face rested on Tucker's jacket, he listened to his heartbeat, and whatever tears escaped went unseen. Tucker smelled nice, the regular Tucker-smell mixed with campfire smoke and sweat.

"I have an idea."

"Murder?" Danny shivered.

"Nah, too serious. We'll go to his gym locker in the dead of night," at this proximity, Tucker's voice vibrated, and the sound literally got into his bones. Danny found it oddly soothing. "We take all of his jock equipment and move it to the football field where we dig a solid six by six grave. Pour lighter fluid on top, set it on fire, surround it in a salt circle. Headstone that reads ' _Here lies Dash Baxter's hopes and dreams_ ' with the addendum ' _cleansed of this earth with ritual magic_ '."

Danny began to smile, "sounds like a plan."

"Bet we could even get Poindexter in on it. Over this? Totally justified."

Danny lifted his head. Tucker relaxed his arms and kept only one around him, solid. Human. They walked back to camp at a much slower pace, huddled together. Danny's eyesight began to normalize with time and ectoenergy collecting in his system, but he continued to accept help on the journey. Now more than ever the little amount of sleep from the day before got to him. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, a rare sensation. His legs shook between steps. He wanted to fall in bed, sleep, deal with everything later.

He made a note to haunt whoever invented camping. "What time is it?"

"Tenish."

"So we've been here eight hours."

"Roughly."

Danny paused. The trees thinned out to reveal the beach and volleyball nets. At the top of the hill, a ring of yellow light turned cabins into silhouettes. He rubbed his eyes. "Can we never do summer camp again after this?"

Tucker considered. "I'll invent a summer camp for next time. Flyers, website, registration fees. We'll even rent out a bus, give a couple people ice cream in exchange for keeping up the ruse. Then we'll drive around the corner, turn Sam's basement into a blanket fort, and let you sleep for a whole week."

Danny grinned. "We should've thought of that a month ago."

* * *

They decided to address hunger before sleep. It grew colder, they passed dark and lifeless cabins. The buildings were silent, foreboding, making up a disjointed circle that reminded Danny of summoning. His skin crawled. They stuck to the shadows and checked on the only cabin with glowing windows, where the counselors resided. Talking could be heard through the walls, but the calm rhythm of conversation indicated their absence went unnoticed. Danny considered the lack of supervision both irresponsible and a relief.

They hopped up to the mess hall and Tucker crouched beside the side door that was cast in shadows. Tucker produced lock picking tools from his pocket and got to work on the door. Danny sat down next to him. "I've never picked a lock before."

"It's not that hard," he pressed his lips together, "when you can't walk through the wall your best friend just crashed through…" He shot Danny a grin. "I learned fast."

"I don't crash through that many walls."

"You don't crash at all. You just go intangible and _fall_ , removing wind resistance and friction so you can't slow down. You only stop when you remember you're supposed to hit something. Chasing you is _very_ annoying when I don't know how many buildings you've sailed through." The door clicked. Tucker put his tools away and stood. "Come on," he helped Danny to his feet, "you need to eat an actual meal today."

"I had breakfast."

"What was breakfast?"

"...String cheese."

"That's not breakfast. You _know_ that's not breakfast."

"Well, I'm not as good at being human as you are." His stomach growled in agreement.

Tucker pushed the door open and ushered Danny in. "I have more practice."

The ghost shield hardly bothered him. His core needed to collect more energy before he could generate a corporeal ghost form; technically, eating and sleeping would speed up that recovery. Technically. Danny rarely had the time to notice a difference. He clenched and unclenched his fists, watching Tucker break into the kitchen and pilfer cupboards with the expertise of someone who had grown used to breaking and entering. Danny, accustomed to the advantage of invisibility, checked over his shoulder at every sound.

Danny swallowed. He stood in the corner and surveyed rows of long tables and rubbed his arms. Anxiety tightened around his neck like a coiling snake. Tucker placed a peach in his palm and gave him the kind of look his parents would give him if they knew how much he didn't do for himself. "I want to sit on the floor," Danny announced and sat at the table. He sank on the tabletop, put his head down and breathed in the smell of old paint and dust. Tucker sat down beside him, released a heavy sigh and leaned against Danny; shoulder to shoulder, silent.

Danny nibbled. Tucker drank, checked his phone.

"We were going to call Sam."

"She can't do anything."

"Will it help?"

"No."

Tucker rubbed his back, a habit that was meant to be grounding, meant to take the raging ghost under Danny's skin and remind him that he needed to be more human. Contact drove him to settle back into his skin, into the weight of bones and the rhythm of a heartbeat. It reminded him what it was to be alive. Without the activity in his core, it was only a hand rubbing sore muscles. Danny closed his eyes. He let himself smile. Things were going alright; his powers would balance out, Dash probably wouldn't manage to summon anything, and Vlad might actually be here for real estate. "I'm sorry I've been dumb," Danny mumbled into his arm. "Thinking - dumb stuff. About everyone. I guess, I don't know. Maybe I think too much about things. Maybe I'm a little paranoid."

The hand went away, Danny's smile drifted with it. He lifted himself up; Tucker fiddled with his phone, avoiding eye contact. "You _were_ nearly strangled to death by a camp counselor today."

"A typical day in the Life of Me."

Tucker pushed up his glasses and set his phone face-down, the blue light that had been making his facial expressions clear vanished. Plunged into darkness, spots filled Danny's vision. "I mean you were right," Tucker admitted, "we don't get days off. We don't get breaks. You being paranoid is usually the right way to feel. It's an instinct, and I should listen to your instincts. You're a little bit psychic."

Danny rolled his eyes. "I am not psychic."

"You're a medium of the dead."

"No, I _am_ dead."

"Yeah. A direct spiritual channel, a bridge between the worlds, alive and dead, Schrodinger's boy…"

Danny snorted and punched his arm. "Shut up. I am not." The darkness hid his burning cheeks. "I can't add psychic to the list of crazy stuff I do. I think the fact that my parents wear neon hazmat suits and keep a ghost portal in our basement is outstanding enough. I don't need more."

"Not to mention the whole 'dead' thing."

"We agreed to never mention the whole 'dead' thing."

Tucker laughed.

Danny ate half a sandwich and an entire peach; Tucker seemed only mildly satisfied that he exhibited any appetite at all. They wound up on the floor, leaning against the wall that separated kitchen and cafeteria. Tucker played a game on his phone while Danny daydreamed about all the schoolwork he'd never finished. That history paper three months ago, those essay prompts eight weeks ago, the half-done math problems he'd never got a handle on. They sank into his heart like teeth; sharp, horrifying, with the knowledge that there was nothing he could do to go back and fix it. He squirmed. What's done is done. He wrapped himself in anxiety of unfinished work, of already posted grades, of the disappointment he made himself out to be.

"What're you thinking about?"

 _Fentons don't fail._

"Nothing." Danny wrapped his arms around his knees. "I'm just tired."

Tucker turned his phone into a flashlight. The cafeteria became stark, a sharp contrast of defined shapes and heavy shadows. "Then let's sneak back into our dorms. If I don't sleep now I'll stay up until three am."

They left the same way they came in, but Tucker didn't lock the door; he believed in quick and easy access to areas protected by shields. Danny promised to break the lock when he gathered enough energy to phase. A breeze picked up and moaned through the trees; Danny stuck close to Tucker on the way to cabin three, having decided to check on Dash's status. If he was back and safe in the dormitory, they had nothing to worry about. Tucker quietly entered the dorm first, rustling too loud for Danny's taste, and reappeared at the door a minute later. He gave his answer when he stepped out, softly closing the door behind himself and holding a small tube of lipstick that wasn't actually lipstick. Danny rubbed his forehead. "No Dash?"

"Nope."

"If he's dead I'm finding his ghost and melting his core," Danny promised. "And if he's alive I'm going to punch him. In the face. Or at least complain about how horrible he is. In private, not to his face. I'm not looking for trouble."

Tucker pat his shoulder. "Your jokes are getting worse."

"I'm _tired_."

* * *

There was no forest.

The trees were replaced by walls of black ink, formless, defined by no outline or positive shape. The weak circle of light produced by Tucker's phone provided them with nothing but a cluster of silver leaves. Clouds filled the sky and hid the moon. Danny froze in place. He couldn't convince himself to get within ten paces of the treeline. Tucker paused when he realized Danny was no longer beside him. "What?"

"It's dark." More than dark, impenetrable.

"Yeah. It's night."

Danny shook his head. "Darker than before."

"Not really." Tucker looked over his shoulder. Danny wondered how he couldn't see what had changed, and was unable to articulate the difference. He took a step back and shook his head. "You need to let your eyes adjust," Tucker suggested, "you're not afraid of the dark."

"I know I'm not afraid of the dark."

"Then why are you afraid?"

Danny lifted his shoulders. He couldn't move any closer; instincts inside of him pulled him to a halt. Tucker rubbed his forehead. "Right. Psychic. Okay. So no to the forest." He put his hands on his hips. "You lead the way."

Danny blinked. "My powers are shorted. I don't have any - "

"Half-ghost. Shorted out doesn't change that. You don't want to walk in there, you walked in there before. Something's up. So I'm going to do what I'm supposed to and listen to your instincts. Where are we supposed to go?" Tucker refused protest. "If Dash dies because of it I will personally write a beautiful eulogy about his stupidity, and it won't be your fault that he's an idiot."

"That's not funny." Danny ran a hand through his hair. Tucker waited. Danny licked his lips. "We'll check the lake."

The moon revealed itself when they arrived at the shore, lighting up the water, making waves into small blue silhouettes which dipped and rose on the surface. Tucker picked up a stone and tossed it across; two skips and it sank. Danny hugged his jacket, wind brushed hair off his forehead. "If a lake monster jumps out, you're our only hope."

Tucker played with his miniature ecto-blaster, built inside of an antique cosmetics tube. "If a lake monster jumps out I'm faster than you. I'm running."

"So loyal."

Danny shuffled, nudging Tucker with his elbow, lips turning upward. The water yielded nothing, listening revealed only chirping bats, and search as he might there wasn't anything to see. Empty. Calm.

"Hate to break it to you, but I'm not psychic." Danny shoved his hands in his pockets. They ached. "There's nothing here."

Tucker chewed his lip. "Maybe…" he stiffened. Danny frowned, following his gaze along the shore. He squinted. Near a set of boulders was a flicker of movement; what should have been a stone shifted, then tumbled forward and lay flat. It lifted again, reflecting the blue light of the moon and casting a stark black shadow. "Well," Tucker sighed, "looks like you _are_ psychic after all." A small buzzing sound, the charge of a miniature ecto-weapon. "Do we shoot it?"

"That's not a ghost." Danny took a step, hesitant, and then another. Whatever it was didn't move quickly, shifting slowly along the waterline. It sank again. Laid still. "Is that…" He started walking toward it with purpose.

Tucker rushed to pull him back, "You don't have a gun! Let me - "

Danny shook his head, squinting. The creature didn't get back up, flat against the sand, mixing with the color of it, nearly invisible. "It's human!" Danny twisted out of his grip. A white coat would mix with the color of the white sand. When still, the figure blended in with the beach and stones. "That's Dash!"

" _Wait -_ "

He broke into a run.

Stumbling on rocks interspersed with sand that sank beneath his footsteps, Danny fought to stay upright despite the shaking in his legs and the cold wind that picked up. Images flashed, unreal but clear. An empty-eyed and broken human body; the lost shell of Dash Baxter. Dash became Mikey, found decapitated in an alleyway. Dash became the entire school showing up for a silent funeral. Dash became the next reason hatred grew in Valerie's eyes. Dash became months of justified ghost hunting that sent him home with lacerations to hide from the people who put them there. His parents, spending weeks muttering about _that horrible beast_ over breakfast. " _Dash_!"

It was definitely Dash, sprawled lifeless on the sand. Danny crashed beside him, reaching for his shoulders and hauling him up. His jacket was wet and stained, Dash's head hung like a dead weight. "Dash!" He grabbed his chin, wet and slippery, making his stomach flip. Blood and sand mixed together to make a muddy grain.

It spotted Dash's blonde hair, soaked the shoulders of his jacket, covered his neck and smeared across his face. Danny braced his knees in the sand and pushed him onto his back. Dash sank, his eyes wide open and staring at nothing. He didn't speak or move. Danny touched his neck, searching for a wound, a heartbeat, anything.

His fingers shook. They slid in the blood and fell off. He tried again.

The throat vibrated oddly; Dash made a gurgling sound. His body was stiff and damp.

"The eyes!" Tucker's flashlight made red liquid glint. "Get his eyes!" Tucker dropped beside him, breathing heavily. He ignored the blood and brought his phone to each of Dash's pupils; miraculously, Dash winced. His pupils did not dilate. No ectoenergy or electric sparks reflected in the harsh light; human.

Danny slipped his thumb across Dash's neck, searching for the wound. "Where are you hurt?" He pressed, frantic hands searching for a laceration. Dash had to be in _shock_ , or dying, bleeding out. Danny scrambled to find the source.

"Danny."

"He's in shock, his breathing isn't steady, what should - shit, I can't find the wound!"

"Danny."

"Tucker, _help me_!"

"Danny, I don't think that's his blood."

Danny slowed. Their classmate made no response, his eyes were empty; blood stained Dash's clothes, his hair, streaked across his smearing pattern was haphazardly spilled, with no clear tracks to mark a source. His head needed to be carved from ear to ear to have that kind of spill. Without a wound, the only explanation left was spatter. A _lot_ of spatter. Danny's throat tightened. "Oh."

Danny hauled him up, gripping his shoulder to keep him steady and upright. Dash swayed, his lips cracked, and spotted Danny with eyes that didn't focus. His mouth moved, a small whisper rasped out of his throat, " _Rain_."

"...Rain?"

Dash clung to Danny with the glassy gaze of a corpse. He opened his mouth like a fish gasping for water. He seemed on the verge of sinking back to the ground and staying there forever. Danny tucked his arm under Dash's to keep him from folding over, "it's alright. You're alright," almost certain the reassurance was a lie, "can you hear me? Dash?"

Dash's entire body shook. Tucker cleared his throat. "Blood spatter. Rain. ... _Blood_ _rain_?" Danny's heart sank. "Okay." Tucker got ahold of himself first. "Okay. Don't panic. What do we do?"

Danny's hands, covered in blood, slipped along Dash's clothes. _Call an ambulance and hope the creature that did this doesn't arrive first?_ Dash's breathing was so low that Danny couldn't feel it brush across his face in their proximity. There was so much blood. Dead blood, murder blood, the kind of blood that meant they'd walked away from something and let disaster strike. Dash could be dying in his arms. _Dying_. Panic took over. "I don't know! How am I supposed to know what to do?"

"We find the ghost, right?"

Danny shook his head. Dash needed to be okay. He _had_ to be. His heart raced, mud soaked into his jeans, and every attempt at forming a plan slipped from him like sand through an hourglass. "I'm out of juice." He felt helpless. In over his head. He got dizzy and the blood on his hands made his stomach flip. "We only have your blaster, we didn't bring any tracers - "

"How could we remember a shield but not a tracer?" Tucker moaned. "Why the hell did we bring that stupid heavy thing that we can't carry anywhere but no ectotracers?"

Danny was going to be sick. It was the smell, the _overwhelming_ smell.

"I gave my thermos to him. Is it…" He scanned the beach, which was empty of even a footprint. "The camera...?" The bag, the tripod, the journal, and the thermos were all missing.

"How are we so unprepared?" Tucker's voice shook.

"We aren't unprepared! We planned for weeks - "

"We don't have anything!"

"We have…" Danny dropped his eyes to Dash. "Shit."

They had nothing to defend themselves with. Danny failed to keep his composure. "Dash." He opened his mouth, trying to find the right words. He shook Dash by the shoulder, trying to get a reaction out of him. Dash slumped against him. "Dash. You _inarticulate_ potato pancake. _What did you summon_?"

Under the moonlight, color faded to a subtle tint of blue and black. It felt like Dash responded, but in a warm way that spilled into his bones and made him dizzy. A strangeness sparked beside his heart, a skipped beat and a flush of cold that raced down his veins. His core woke up, stretched; the sharpness of iron entered his nose, the taste of salt in his mouth, color leapt into focus. The shapes of the beach and trees, formerly dark silhouettes, clearly distinguished themselves as obviously as they would in sunlight. Danny's cheeks flushed, but not with the heat of human blood.

His ghost half was active again.

Danny touched his chest, smiling slightly. "Sorry." In the small space of a breath his terror and illness faded away. Similarly, Dash seemed more alert, teetering back and forth as he held himself upright. "What was that?"

"I think," Dash rasped, color entering his face, "I _think_ it's a demon."

* * *

Pause.  
Breathe.  
I'd take a break before the next one. Get some water, stay hydrated, write a review. Listen to music. Take a shower. Found a charity organization. And in ten minutes, come back for that next chapter.  
-Carrie

.

 _Up next:  
_ Excerpt 2  
 **Dash Baxter  
** _and the little house of everyday horrors._


	4. Dash Baxter

Excerpt 2.

 **Dash Baxter  
** _and the little house of everyday horrors._

* * *

There is a suburb in Amity Park called _The Hills_ that is entirely flat. It's a series of vacant lots and man-made drainage ditches haphazardly scattered between picket fences and powerwashed driveways. The Hills is a result of the 2008 housing market crash; half desolate wasteland and half American dream. The houses are aligned in rows down poorly paved streets; they all match in style and vary between shades of light to dark blue. They're clustered in packs of ten to twelve; between each group, fields overgrown with half dug foundations and stacks of rotted plywood rule. Despite the international recovery of the housing market, The Hills never continued is the kind of wasteland that truly represents the micro-apocalypse that ghost attacks created for Amity Park.

A black-paved street stretches out beyond abandoned projects, beyond the last cluster of neighborhood, and carves a path through unused dirt roads to a cul de sac. Inside of the cul de sac there is only one house. It has a yard, and a fence, and a tree. The walls are painted blue, though the entire first floor has been tinged brown by dust. Behind the house a series of ramps and winding paths stretch across untreated soil; two bikes wind on this beaten trail. Their chains hum like buzzards, the handles refract the afternoon sun. The two riders drop into a rainwater ditch and leap out the other side; they part from the well-worn track toward the lonely blue house.

Dash Baxter propped his bike against the wall between a dying hedge and a collection of sun-bleached snow shovels. He tossed off his riding goggles and hung them on worn handlebars; thin red lines left an imprint around his eyes. Dash checked the driveway. Empty. "Mom's still not home," he announced, and stretched. The frayed ends of his favorite riding jacket strained against movement. He twisted his wrist, the one with an ash colored scar underneath a tear in his gloves.

Kwan hopped off his red rider, removing a real riding helmet - the kind that cost more than a flat screen TV and protected his entire face from chin to visor. He carefully situated his bike in the shade, with a wall to protect it from the wind and set the kickstand. "Water," he rumbled, his hair stuck flat to his forehead. The house had a wooden porch, a red door, and navy blue shutters that were all fixed closed. He marched up the steps and pushed open the door, but paused to remove his jacket and strip his gloves, fold them, and place them neatly on the seat of a cracked porch chair. "You coming?"

Dash remained by his bike. He shook his head. "I need to get the mail."

"'Kay."

Their mailbox was the kind intended for a community, containing several mailboxes in one. Every numbered box was brand new, untouched, and rusting. One stood out amongst the others with significantly more scarring and BAXTER scribbled across it in faded black marker. A year prior, Dash affixed the mail key to a coated wire, which looped between the slats of their mailbox and hung low to the ground. This is mainly because Dash sincerely hated getting new keys from the post office as much as he hated asking his mom where the last one went.

He snagged the hanging key and opened the small cupboard, plucked out three letters for Helena Baxter (electricity bill, hospital bill, spam), one for Current Resident (spam), and a small brass key. This key, for the security of suburban neighborhoods, meant a package waited in one of the slightly larger cupboards in the multi-mailbox. " _Finally_ ," Dash muttered, shoving the key into a lock labeled P1. The irony of suburban security in an area where thieves were most often of the walking-through-walls kind was not lost on Dash when he opened the second mailbox and pulled out a small, light package with his name on it.

He shoved the box under his arm and returned home. Kwan was on a barstool in the kitchen nursing a bottle of water and flipping through radio stations. He saw Dash come in and settled on _smooth jazz 98.1_ featuring a lonely saxophone. Dash nudged the box onto the counter and turned on the sink to rinse a cup. "Is that the thing?" Kwan asked, leaning over the bar to reach into the sink; their hands brushed. Kwan pulled out a paring knife and set to opening the package. Dash watched, wordless, as styrofoam was exposed.

Kwan pulled out a user's manual and an Amazon receipt, then lifted the styrofoam out. It was a taped-together square that Kwan pried apart; shelled in the middle was a camera. Compared to all of the other equipment Dash had once owned, the MLX Night Vision Compatible Handheld was…

Small.

Kwan dislodged it from the styrofoam and proceeded to unpack the accessories; a battery pack, complete with short-cord charger. A small photo booklet featuring various tripods and coupons. A free 30-day trial CD with mediocre editing software. Kwan laid it all out on the bar. Dash dried his cup and filled it with water, took a sip, and frowned at the equipment. "Well," Kwan said with a measured amount of hope, "you can work with this."

Dash frowned. It wasn't the Panasonic HMC. It wasn't two years of collected footage. It wasn't a nearly finished film that only needed an audio tune-up. He shrugged.

"You okay?"

"It'll work." His glass clanked too hard when he set it on the counter, exposing far too much of what he was feeling. "I've just got a lot of work to do. A new angle to come up with. Different types of footage to gather…"

"I'll help." Kwan gathered up all the trash and carried it around the corner. He lifted the trashcan lid and paused.

"What?"

"Nothing." Kwan shoved the remains of packaging into the garbage, but it was too late. He stepped aside, resigned, when Dash came up behind him and lifted out the styrofoam. He plucked from the top of the pile (hadn't even bothered to _hide_ this one) a small orange bottle. _Helena Baxter, Risperidone_. It rattled, full. All of a sudden, his head hurt. "This cost _eighty_ dollars."

Kwan touched his arm.

Dash scattered the box on the floor and dug deeper into the trash, teeth set on edge. Kwan stepped back as the orange bottle sailed through the air, struck the backsplash, and rolled into the sink. Dash threw used plastics and paper towels onto the floor, digging until he recovered another bottle, orange; it didn't rattle at all. Dash opened it and spilled the contents onto his hand; dust remained. The prescription was over two months old. Oxycodone. The attribution prescribed for _Dash Baxter_. "Guess I know where these went now."

"Shit," Kwan murmured, so close, too close, not close enough. Dash rubbed his head, hoping a migraine might just appear and make him think of nothing else. "Dash - "

"No, it's fine." He dropped the empty bottle back in the trash. "I just can't wait to get out of here. I'm _getting_ out. Soon."

A hand fell on his lower back, wide and warm. Dash leaned against it. His head buzzed. He needed a computer with enough power to handle editing, which would mean he'd have to trek to the library on the north side of town, and he needed eight hundred dollars to fix his car, so he'd have to take the bus - that's a three hour journey, not to mention the time it took to edit. He still had one working external hard drive with a couple of old audio files he might be able to salvage… "If my hard drives weren't all corrupted by the ghost of _what is 4k_ then I'd still have my raw footage. If mom wasn't _fucking crazy_ I'd still have my desktop - " he stopped himself. The hand on his back moved in circles; Kwan knew all of this already. He didn't need to lament about his camera or the pills or his empty trust fund. He didn't need pity.

Kwan turned him around and took his hand; Dash still wore gloves, fingers brushed against his scar and the part of his wrist that was still numb from the surgery. It ached as much as his head. Dash dropped his eyes; Kwan's belt and his jeans and his shoes were all pristine, pressed, and clean. "You don't have to…" He muttered, falling silent when Kwan rested his other hand on his hip. He became aware of his dry and cracked lips, unnaturally warm ears, a warmth in his face.

Kwan snorted, "You're _blushing_."

"It's a sunburn."

The strange thing about damaged nerve endings was that the brush of a hand over a scar is easily confused, and the brain can receive sensation in places inches from the actual location. Kwan passed his thumb over the patch of discolored skin on his wrist, and Dash received the feeling on an untouched section of his forearm ghosting in the opposite direction. He shivered. "Pretty weird sunburn." His hand went to Dash's neck, lightly tracing up next to his ear. "I think it's getting worse."

Dash rolled his eyes. "You've seen stranger things."

Kwan grinned, close enough their breath met the same air, their noses touched. "I don't think so."

Dash grinned, leaning in. Their lips brushed in the beginning of a kiss -

The familiar rumble of a garage door split them apart. They leapt. In a practiced and efficient manner Dash collected all the trash back in the bin; Kwan gathered the camera equipment and cleared off the counter. Together they quickly and quietly retreated to the second floor. Dash kicked his bedroom door shut, Kwan tossed himself into a bean bag chair and stuffed the camera and battery under a pile of clothes.

"I left her medicine in the sink," Dash whispered, panicked. Kwan propped his feet on Dash's desk chair and picked up Dash's old DS; a door banged shut downstairs.

"Nothing you can do now," He said. Dash picked up a book (History of the Nation) and flung himself onto his bed.

The stairs creaked. Dash stared at a paragraph and read the words over and over without absorbing a word. They remained poised like statues, trying to breathe less obviously. The doorknob jiggled.

A woman with a thin nose and a sloping forehead opened the door. She carried a white purse; a couple of crinkled receipts and an open box of cigarettes hung limp from the bag. Helena pressed thin lips together, her cheeks had a pink tinge and her bleached hair lay glossy and flat over her ears. Her eyes swept the room, pausing on Kwan's propped shoes, unfinished laundry heaps, and finally landing on Dash. "I bought a rotisserie chicken." Her voice rang hoarse. "It's on the counter."

Dash nodded at the book, the picture of a student too wrapped up in a chapter to look up. "Did you buy anything else?"

"Cheerios."

"No vegetables?"

" _Dash_ ," she sighed, wringing her hands on her purse; the white leather was cracked and worn around the handle, "you know I don't like to cook after a long day."

 _Not all vegetables need to be cooked,_ Dash thought, pulling his eyes from the book. "I was just asking since we've been out for a week. I can pick some up tomorrow on my way home."

"Way home? From _where_?"

"The yard." Dash went back to his book, turned a page. He realized this was a history book from middle school that he had neglected to return. He pulled his arm over the illustration on the left of the page that distinguished its true intended age group. "Tomorrow's Sunday."

His mother tilted her head, her face empty. Then she squinted and frowned. "You're going _back_ to that place?"

"It's where I work."

"I said I don't want you going back." She hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder and placed her hands on her hips. "Look at your hand! You can barely use it!"

"The doctor cleared me to go back to work," Dash muttered. "You were _there_. You agreed."

"I don't remember agreeing."

"Well you did."

"Don't put words in my mouth!" She gestured at Kwan. "I saw the helmet on the counter. Were you _riding_ today too? You're going to get hurt on those ramps, you're going to get hurt at the lumber yard - I am not going to _lose_ another child."

Kwan sank further into the beanbag, frozen. Dash turned another page, so accustomed to this tactic of argument that his words followed a routine pattern rather than a thoughtful reply. "Sorry mom," he wasn't, "I thought you said you were okay with it."

She scowled. "I _never_ said that." She glared at Kwan. "And I don't want you having friends over if they're going to talk you into doing dangerous things, either."

"We stayed on the streets," Dash lied; he closed the book and pushed it behind himself. "No jumps, no trails."

Helena Baxter dropped her shoulders, her purse dropped around her elbow. The empty box of cigarettes fell. Helena did not notice. She leaned on the doorway, and her frustration shifted to an exhaustion. "Oh," her voice lowered and wavered, "well. I don't want you pushing yourself. You could get hurt."

"Sorry."

"Okay," Helena sighed, "I'm worried, that's all. You know your mom worries." She covered her mouth and laughed. Her eyes crinkled, the blatant cheer to her voice mixed false bravado and forced confidence. "I guess I'm a bad mom for worrying too much. Did you get all of your homework done?"

"Yeah."

"Did Kwan?"

Kwan looked up from the DS. There was no actual game in the dock, and he used the shift of focus to slide the console out of sight before she noticed. "All done. Even got some extra credit done for my anatomy class." He steadied his feet on the ground and leaned forward to expertly shift the topic of discussion away from Dash's extracurricular activities. "I've been applying to colleges. My dad wants me to get into nursing, because of all the scholarships, but I'm not really sure about it."

Helena nodded, her attitude changed. She plucked at the stained front pocket of her purse and her eyes became clouded and distant. "Sciences are very important. Dash wants to apply for engineering, or maybe medicine; I think he wants to be like his little brother Andrew." Dash tensed. "Did you know Andrew wanted to be a dentist?" Helena pressed on dreamily. "He was one for Halloween when he was ten…"

"That wasn't Halloween," Dash corrected. He toed his laundry into a more compact heap by the bed. "Andrew was in _Little Shop of Horrors_ and he was twelve."

"He would have made such a good dentist," Helena continued as if she hadn't heard him. "If you had met him, Kwan, you would agree. He had a very nice smile, and very white teeth, and he loved the tooth fairy so much he would write letters to her..." She faded off and then folded her arms, rubbing them absently. "Well. Anyway. You don't stay too late, alright? Dash can't have friends stay over."

"I remember," Kwan said.

She smiled and left, wandering down the hall like a ghost unfamiliar with the path. Kwan got up and closed the door, clicking it shut as quietly as he could. Dash flopped on the bed, arms stretched, glow in the dark stars formed the constellation Leo above him. He eyed the lines between each point, thinking of the solo lion. The patience to hunt, the will to survive, the perseverance to live without the strength of a pack.

"So…" Kwan joined him on the bed. "You haven't told her about California."

Dash snorted. "I'm not telling her until my stuff's in the back of the truck, the motor's running, and I'm leaning out the window to shout _I'll be in Los Angeles_ at her while I hit the goddamn gas."

Kwan rolled onto his side; his head obscured the triangle-shaped bottom of Leo. "Has she been talking about Andrew a lot?"

Dash shrugged, dropping to a whisper. "When she skips her medication she kind of jumps between topics. Andrew always comes up. So does dad, but only when she's really angry; usually to tell me I'm the reason he's gone." He didn't care about that anymore. It used to bother him, a lot, he used to argue back more than anything. But arguing with his mother was like convincing a wall to move. Now he just argued with other people. Those were easier battles to win. "I know why she's home late so often," he added quietly.

Kwan rested his arm on Dash's chest. The move usually made him uncomfortable, without a lock on his door to keep anyone from bursting in, but they were on high alert. Kwan was fast. They're fine. "Where is she going?"

"Paulina told me she saw her." He sat up, Kwan's hand slipped off and he followed suit. Their shoulders met, Dash leaned against him. "There's a cult downtown that tries to summon spirits of the recently deceased. Bunch of crackpot psychics and cons. Paulina said they're not doing witchcraft right."

Kwan's eyebrow rose. "You got Paulina to _talk_ about witchcraft?"

"A little." He flushed. "It wasn't easy. I just wanted to know, you know, if mom really was… making contact. She understood."

"And?"

"She said ghosts don't form fast enough for that. It's only been four years, if he's going to become something, it won't be for a while," he bit his lip, "and, uh, according to the other research I looked up it's more or less confirmed that ghosts take like a century to form, at minimum twenty-five-ish years."

Doing research on ghosts became a fad when Mr. Lancer's junior year pro-con writing prompts came out. Unlike the usual political abortion or no abortion debate, Lancer released only one topic. Ghosts. Good or evil. Thus, the great Amity debate began. Never before had a mass collective of 400 students put so much work into an essay. It won them scholarships, awards, prestige; but most of all, it made supernatural knowledge common knowledge. Visits to the Fenton's in-home bookshelf became more common than visiting a library. The GIW set up recruitment booths at the school that passed out a wild amount of informational booklets but failed to catch any recruits. Paulina began a ghost awareness and activism program. Sam Manson screenprinted free pro-ghosts t-shirts for her events. Every debate lesson and classroom in the school discussed privileges, applications of human rights, and hunting. Dash was pro-ghost rights (his best friend would never forgive him if he wasn't) but Kwan was anti-ghost in general; he wasn't interested in research, not after Mikey died.

Dash was sick the day he was killed. Kwan saw it happen. He was never really comfortable talking about ghosts after the funeral, and no potential for scholarships convinced him otherwise.

Kwan dug out the MLX from Dash's dirty laundry. He gave it to Dash, a gesture of support. "Where are we filming next?" It seemed Dash was the only one left Kwan took an interest in ghosts for.

Dash's face grew hot. More sudden sunburns, obviously. "I don't know. Mom found my police radar and threw it off the balcony." He turned over the camera, inspecting the rudimentary buttons of an average handheld recorder. The lens was fat and square and the same length of the camera body, with a latch to remove the night-vision appendage. "I'm thinking of something along the lines of calling it the Blair Ghost Project. Film in some wooded areas, that kind of thing."

Kwan made a face. "I liked Spirit Journals better."

"Can't go back and redo all my interviews," Dash muttered. "Not with the semester ending, and mom's got me signed up for eight different summer camps…"

"Summer camp!" Kwan brightened. "That's perfect. We have until August, there's always creepy stuff in a summer - "

"The closest one is two hundred miles from Amity," Dash deadpanned. "She knows I want to make the film. She's blocking me at every turn, there's almost no activity a hundred miles outside the city."

Kwan considered. "Well," he ran his fingers through his hair, "there's gotta be some way to fix that."

Dash had a plan; make the movie.

Win a full-ride scholarship.

Move to California.

Be free.

"Yeah," Dash sighed, "we'll find a way to make it work."

Now all he really needed were the ghosts.

* * *

Shout out to the closet my ex boyfriend and I shared in high school. May I always remember you as the cleverest and most empathetic beard (even if you couldn't grow one).

-Carrie

Up next:  
 **Chapter Three: Call for Backup  
** _(wrong number)_


	5. 3 Call for Backup

**Call For Backup  
** _(wrong number)_

* * *

3

Nothing smelled right in the dark.

This made sense; the absence of sunlight causes an absence of heat, air molecules slow, smells become less intense. Still, Tucker felt as if there was more to it; as if the nature of _things_ changed in the dark. Take, for example, the mess hall. Only hours ago it smelled like floor soap, mud, and wood that had been painted so many times the smell of the paint became the wood and the smell of the wood became the paint. But now…

He detected hints of sap, oak, a memory of trees in the distressed wooden tables. In the twilight hour, the cafeteria smelled _sweeter_. That must be what's wrong, Tucker decided; nothing in the absence of light becomes inviting, so the nature of something more inviting during the night must therefore be suspicious. If it weren't for the ghost shield, Tucker wouldn't consider this a safe place.

Yet.

Here he was.

Helping Dash into the kitchen.

He found a spot against the wall and pointed. Dash sank. They had washed as much blood from his face as they could, but his hair had cracked dry splotches dotted inside of it. Dash's camera, the journal, and the thermos were nowhere to be found on the beach. Dash left his red-stained letterman's jacket inside the lake, unable to stomach rinsing it. Now all he wore was a thin Beatles t-shirt featuring Ringo and the Millennium Falcon.

Tucker considered trauma duty his best contribution to team phantom. He had a knack for turning himself into a calm presence for people, without Sam's intensity or Jazz's psychoanalyzation. Usually, Tucker enjoyed helping victims.

Usually.

"We can sit at a table when Danny gets back. He knows where in the cafeteria the shield ends, so…" He trailed off. Tucker usually stopped when he started to explain things, for fear that he might someday explain too much. Dash didn't pick up on it. He didn't pick up on much of anything, just sat on the floor in a mound of dust and stared at empty yogurt boxes across the kitchen. Tucker withheld his misgivings and got to work. The kitchen had exactly one light that didn't flicker when he turned them on; this was the only light allowed to stay on. Tucker rifled through shelves that were neatly arranged on the side of the kitchen opposite to the appliances and fridges. The shelves contained the following: enough pancake mix to feed an army. More packs of gatorade than necessary. An entire shelf of marinara sauce. Boxes of granola bars. Pickled vegetables. Canned vegetables. Miscellaneous crates of produce. One stray bag of potato chips.

What type of disappointing food did 17-year-olds who summoned spirits for fun deserve? Tucker considered a box of granola bars.

Oatmeal raisin. _Perfect_.

Tucker searched his pockets for his Swiss Army knife and cut apart the box. He took six granola bars; two oatmeal (for Dash) and four chocolate (for the idiots putting up with Dash). Raisins were a capital punishment in his book; reserved for meatheads who summoned irresponsibly and teachers who never actually wanted to be teachers.

Granola wasn't comfort food. It would taste dry and go down very poorly, if consumed at all. Tucker usually gave the traumatized something of more value.

Tonight was not that kind of night.

Tonight, he was putting up with events which could have been prevented by someone who should have known better. He could still be head of trauma duty if he took one _small_ revenge.

Tucker considered Dash, with his arms wrapped around his knees and the countenance of someone so completely lost they couldn't tell what was an emotion which should be felt and what was a memory which should be forgotten. Tucker sighed. He needed to think. He checked all the doors from the back of the house to the front, making sure every lock was turned; save for the side door, for Danny. He looked through all the windows, going so far as to stare at the trees until they filled him with nervous anticipation. When he returned to Dash, his intentions were in a better place.

Tucker joined Dash against the wall and placed a granola bar in his hand. Chocolate, the taste of mercy. Dash _should_ have known better but it didn't change anything. He sighed loudly, the kind of sigh that hopefully conveyed all of his frustration and disappointment.

Dash dropped the granola bar.

He didn't seem to notice he'd been holding it.

Tucker waved his fingers in front of his face. "Hey." He chewed on his lower lip and reminded himself to be patient, calm, and to worry about Danny (the usual trauma duty emotions.) "So, uh… guess you're not as much of an authority on ghosts as you thought, huh?"

Dash's hands were the type of hands with scars, scratches, and callouses that meant he did some kind of hard work when he wasn't in school. Labor of the type that Tucker couldn't guess. Those hands balled up into fists. Tucker nodded, but understood little. "It's gonna be fine. Danny's got a lot of experience - with his parents being, you know, hunters. I've sort of learned this ghost stuff on the side. Picked it up, I guess. We'll find out what's out there before morning and then we'll - "

"Shut _up_."

"What?"

Dash's fists shook. He clenched his teeth, unable to process what words needed saying. He spoke, voice thick with frustration. "Quit acting like you know what to _do_ , Foley. You don't know shit!"

On the occasion that Danny joined Tucker for trauma duty, his inert sense of psychic empathy made him difficult to surprise. He'd use his ghost powers to influence calm in people. The occasion was exceptionally rare as Danny had to be _really_ stable to soothe other people; but on a good day he at least made a good warning system for unexpected anger. "Give me a little credit?" Tucker wasn't sure where to go with it. He couldn't go into detail about how much he knew about the supernatural, so he tried for vague comfort. "This is normal for us. I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but ghosts ruining our vacations is a certified trademark of Amity Park. It's on our postcards."

Literally. Tucker turned the _A Ghost Just Ruined My Day!_ postcard into a wallpaper and covered Danny's entire bathroom with it. The Fenton parents approved. Danny laughed so hard he cried, then he started crying for real; Jazz had to spend three hours locked in her room with him calming him down. Despite all that, Danny insisted on keeping it. He claimed it made him laugh and cry; a true hallmark of great art.

Dash dropped his head against the wall, eyeing a shelf of cleaning supplies with suspicion. "It wasn't a ghost," he mumbled faintly.

Tucker had an enormous grasp of the supernatural, more than most humans would ever have privilege to. He knew things that Dash didn't. He knew that despite Dash's interpretation, it was a ghost. He also knew it must be powerful, enough to trigger a psychic dread in Danny when he'd been shorted out. Tucker knew, and Dash didn't, that every supernatural occurrence ever - everything to ever go bump in the night - was at the sole hands and responsibility of _ghosts_. There were only ever ghosts; ghosts, humans, and the very few caught in between. "It's a ghost. Maybe a big one, maybe really ugly, but a ghost is a ghost, and we know how to handle them."

Dash snorted.

It was not in the usual template of Dash Baxter to disagree in silence. Tucker had no desire to start a fight, but at the same time he fought a rising pity. Dash was dumb. Irrational. He did a lot of stupid things. But he was still the victim and Tucker still had trauma duty. "I've fought more ghosts than you know," he put in real effort to be sincere, "I'm actually pretty good."

"Is that why we're hiding in a kitchen? Waiting for your stupid boyfriend?"

Pity gone.

" _Yup_."

He did not add _you arrogant ghost-summoning toad_. He did not acknowledge that Dash struck a chord, that the list of insults Tucker could handle was legendary up until a very specific point. Dash didn't know there was a hurt or a reason or a fear all buried down underneath one simple assumption.

"Well?" Dash demanded. " _Where_ is he?"

"My boyfriend? Or Danny?"

 _Don't hit him._

"I'm being serious."

"Me too."

Dash rubbed at his hair, touched the dried spots of blood and immediately retracted his fingers. He glared at the opposite wall, the floor, anywhere but Tucker. "You and Fenton are a _thing_ , aren't you?" The way he said it. An accusation on a scalding tongue, overflowing with revulsion.

His hand shook. Tucker pressed it to his chest. That didn't stop the shaking. "What? Me?" _Don't hit him. Don't hit him. Don't. Hit. Him._ "I'm taken, actually. Dating a ghost."

"You're a goddamn liar, Foley!"

"I'm a solid _catch_ , is what I am." Fury boiled right under his skin. A piece of him thought he should calm down. He didn't want to. "Oh, and it'd be really _gay_ too, if he wasn't dead. Mostly our dates consist of me watching horror movies and trying to get a decent connection through the ouija board."

The tension in his chest was so thick he could hardly breathe, his jaw ached, and no tiny voice in the back of his head would convince him he was overreacting. Dash, in a similar state, dropped his arms. He wiped at his eyes, changing, and snorted. Then - probably for the sole purpose of throwing Tucker off - he laughed. Not a real laugh, the kind of laugh required for the situation; a short-lived bark of sound imitating what a laugh might be if someone had never heard one before. It dissolved, melting from fake joy into a very real sob. Dash's entire body shook, throwing up his hands over his face. He didn't stop. His breathing turned rapid, crying without any semblance of control.

Tucker wanted to take satisfaction out of it.

He couldn't.

Tucker had, more literally than most, seen far too much death. The rage in his chest drained, pity all that remained. "...Sorry."

Dash shook his head, trying to get a hold on his breathing. He made sounds, fragments of words that broke midway. Tucker, trying, gave his back a couple pats that would have been awkward, if he knew what to feel. Dash pushed his hand away and rubbed at his very red eyes. "N-no." His breath hitched, he paused until his lips stopped shaking. Then he swallowed and tried again. "No, it was funny. ...Thanks."

"I wasn't trying to be funny."

"I noticed."

Tucker pulled out his phone. _11:45 pm_. He swiped by the password and scrolled through a wide collection of games, landing on Zig. It's impossible to win. Tucker started. He let Dash watch.

"So," Dash stretched his legs out, finding a way to sit that wasn't an upright fetal position. "What are you and Fenton? I mean… really. In all, uh, honesty?"

Tucker lost every few seconds. It wasn't hard to pause. He didn't. "We're best friends. Really."

"What's that mean?"

"We're not a couple."

"You act like one, though. I get it if you don't want anyone talking about it. Obviously."

Tucker abandoned his phone. He lifted his eyebrows. "Obviously as in you're the one to understand that feeling?"

"No!"

He let it go and told himself it was because he couldn't risk Dash crying again. "We're not a thing. Not all people are interested in dating other people, Baxter."

"You are."

"Danny _isn't_."

"With anyone?"

A soft _thud_ halted Tucker's almost heated response. He paused.

"Not with - ?" Tucker held up a hand, silencing him. He got his feet beneath him. Another sound, like shuffling, wood creaking. Tucker drew an antique lipstick tube from his pocket, dented with age, but polished to shine. He brushed his thumb over the side; it buzzed in response, emitting a low emerald glow.

"What's that?" Dash whispered.

" _Shh_!"

He edged to the gap between kitchen and cafeteria where a swinging door once existed; only the evidence of hinges dented a split frame. Tucker leaned against it, wood creaking under him. The side door was a grey windowless slab of wood with a brass handle which turned clockwise. Tucker lifted his blaster. The door opened.

Danny stepped inside and dropped his backpack on the wooden floor. He turned and slid the lock from vertical to horizontal then immediately pressed his back to the door, sinking against it with eyes firmly shut. Tucker aimed his miniature ecto-weapon, unrelenting. "What's my favorite movie?"

Danny winced, rubbing his head. For a flicker of a moment his eyes glowed, but the color left so quickly Tucker wasn't sure if he imagined it. Danny stepped off the door and for a moment wobbled like he wouldn't remain upright. He stooped, recovered his backpack, and stood solid. "Horror or other?"

"Horror."

"Nosferatu."

Tucker returned the blaster to his pocket. He regarded Danny's differences; as exhausted as always, holes in his jeans, and without a jacket. He could apparently deal with cold again. "You look like death."

Danny cracked a smile. "Well, I am…" He trailed off. "Dash is still with you, isn't he?"

On cue, Dash filled the doorway behind Tucker. He didn't cry pretty; his face still a little puffy. "What took you so long?"

"...Nice to see you too." Danny didn't linger on Dash's red cheeks. "I brought you something." He opened his backpack and pulled out a black bolt of fabric and held it out. His arms were lighter than usual, freckled with thin white scars that vanished under the yellowish light from the kitchen. Dash unfolded the cloth, scowling at the thick black sweatshirt that couldn't replace the aristocratic value of a letterman jacket.

"It's got Phantom's sigil on it?"

Danny blushed. "My parents hate it."

"They hate it?"

"They hate ghosts."

"Phantom's a ghost hunter," Dash muttered, pulling the sweatshirt over his head. It clung around his shoulders and pulled tightly over his chest, but he seemed pleased to be able to pull a hood over his filthy hair. "They shouldn't hate him."

Danny's flush deepened. "Y-Yeah, well. Anyway. Whatever we're up against might see that and think twice, you know?"

"Or maybe it'll be a big red target," Tucker added sullenly.

Danny bit his lip, shifting from foot to foot. "So, you feeling okay?"

Dash put his hands in his new pockets, testing how far they stretched. "He's been talking," Tucker supplied.

"You left me alone with _Foley_."

"Foley's cool." Danny slipped his backpack on over his shoulders. "I couldn't find anything." He gave Tucker a significant look. "Not my 'extra' Fenton Thermos I thought I had. Or… anything. Not a trace." Danny looked down at his empty hands, his exhaustion evident, but he shoved it aside and focused on Dash. "Okay. So, you. We need to talk about what happened in the woods."

Dash pulled the strings of his hood. "...No."

Danny frowned, in full investigation mode, and Tucker didn't need a brighter light to see the way Danny's eyes creased or the way he grew stiff. He knew that Danny was about to try and pull authority, as if he had any, as if Dash might know the context in which that authority stemmed. And Tucker knew that wouldn't work. He took the floor between them. "You've had a rough night," he reasoned, "but knowing more about what happened out there is going to make it easier to - "

"No!"

Tucker blinked.

"You're not the authorities," Dash explained. He folded his arms, a trick of the light made his eyes seem hollow and empty. He shifted, the light fell over his nose, his stubborn glare revealed itself, "and you still don't know what you're doing, or what we're up against! You want to be in charge all of a sudden? After you abandoned us in the woods? No. We need _real_ help, from someone who actually _knows_ what to do!"

Danny didn't have the energy to hide his deadpan sarcasm. "Yeah, Dash. Let's call the police. They know what to do."

"No! I'm calling the Amity hotline!"

"So, my parents."

Tucker put a supportive hand on Danny's shoulder. "Dash, even with Jack Fenton driving, that's two hours we don't have."

Dash glared. "You're idiots," He stated with the calm certainty ignorance granted him. "You're not a search party. You're not the authorities. You're not even _real_ ghost hunters. Do you know what happens to us if we go after this thing? How many horror movies have you seen?" A lot. Danny had a minor addiction. "Not enough, clearly! You don't know what happens when people don't call for help! We're going to get killed!"

"It doesn't have to be 'we'," Danny replied, stoic. "No one's keeping you here."

"I know what happens to the hot blond when they get separated from everyone else, Fentina." Dash rumbled. "And I'm not going down first. I'm getting help. _Real_ help."

"From who?"

" _Danny Phantom_."

Danny didn't even blink, but Tucker's hand flew up to cover his mouth before he burst.

Dash pressed on with what could only be described as a verbal trainwreck. "The Amity hotline has a direct link to him," a rumor posted in the Spectral Spotter, Amity's ghost-gossip zine. The press conference called by the Fentons to abate the rumors only made it worse, and it really didn't help that said rumors were _technically_ true. "Phantom's gonna fix what you two _can't_!"

 _Oh boy_. Tucker recognized the instantaneous change; the room shifted from mildly cold to downright chilling; a wrongness dropping into Tucker's stomach and filling up his lungs until his head spun. Tucker blinked rapidly and turned around, putting his hands on Danny's shoulders and intentionally blocking Dash from seeing the hot green filling Danny's eyes. "Get a grip," he whispered. The creeping feeling of knots wrapping around his gut tightened and sucked all the air out of his lungs.

He took Danny firmly by the arm and dragged him across the room, fighting for the strength to take every step. Dash remained behind, frozen by Danny's stifling environmental anxiety. Tucker put his back to him and gently took each of Danny's hands in his own and rubbed his thumbs over his palms. The tactile warmth usually reminded his best friend that they were human beings with heartbeats and feelings and didn't need to be buried in six square feet of the heebie jeebies. "Ugh." Danny shivered, his intensity fading, ghostly hold falling off. It made them both dizzy. "Tuck, I'm…"

"Being an ass?"

"Tired." Danny hung his head, electric sparks in his eyes popped and faded. "I forgot to get your sunglasses, and I combed the woods like six times, and I couldn't find anything, not even the _blood_ ; I followed our entire path, I tracked Dash's trail from the lake, I couldn't find a single ectosignature..."

"Forests eat ectosignatures. You know they don't linger in nature."

"Dash is being rude."

"Dash is reacting. It is, typically, more annoying than him not reacting, but it's healthier." Tucker squeezed his hands. "Next?"

Danny took a deep, reconciling breath. "I don't know what we're up against," he admitted, "by now it usually pops out of a bush or tries to eat my leg or… but, Dash… I thought he was _dead_ when we found him." The dark skin under his eyes made his cheeks look hollow. "I'm the one who left him there to _die_. If he gets killed, it's my fault that I couldn't find the source in time." Tension spread from Tucker's fingers and swept through his muscles - a buzzing hot-cold that struck panic into the unsuspecting.

Tucker upped his game and started rubbing Danny's arms until the ghostly spilloff faded. He clenched his teeth and tried to keep his head somewhere positive. "Danny. Whatever happens now is _not_ on you. It's not your responsibility to stop people from doing what they want to, and it's _definitely_ not your job to babysit an idiot who decided to summon some random goop from the depths of the Zone. It's not _your_ job."

"It is my job. That is the _definition_ of my job."

"No," Tucker admonished. " _We_ are damage control. When something goes bump in the night, we fix it. We have no power to control what people do. You know that's too much for one person, right?"

Danny rubbed his eyes and shrugged limply. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

Tucker let him go. "Remember what I said earlier? About your emotions… changing?"

Danny shoved his hands in his torn up jeans. "I'm fine."

"You're glowing."

"Still fine."

Tucker produced a packet of fruit snacks. Fast-sugar solutions for low humanity. "Eat," he ordered, knowing this is what Danny needed most. "Those are Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, and they're only sold in October. So. Precious cargo."

"These are from October?"

"What'll it do, kill you?"

"Point."

Danny popped a couple into his mouth. Tucker nodded with satisfaction and turned to address the Second Disaster In The Room. Dash. However, the cafeteria was empty. Confused, Tucker checked the kitchen. Also empty. "Danny?"

"Dash left." Danny explained through a mouthful of gummies.

"You saw him go?"

"Well, I…"

"Seriously, Danny?!" Tucker threw open the side door and leapt off the porch, Danny clumsily stumbling after. A victim can in a moment become a threat to their operation, someone who would make a stir, call the police, flood the forest with witnesses, put people in danger - a whistle blown in a covert ghost hunt made life intrinsically complex.

Only one cabin still had windows glowing against the black sky. Tucker squinted. Sure enough, there he was - the black sweater did him a few favors, but Tucker made himself an expert at spotting shadows. Dash stood at the door to the counselor's cabin, poised to knock. "Baxter!" Tucker barked, breaking into a run. The door swung open, Tucker helplessly far away. He pumped his legs, his chest ached; _it's okay, just a little farther._ He huffed. The porch was too far until it appeared under his sneakers. Tucker crashed against the doorframe in front of Dash, gasping. His head spun. He fought his own lungs to breathe in an attempt to act casual, but nauseating smoke assaulted him in a thick haze. Tucker went over the edge; his asthma triggered, his lungs constricted, and he sank against the door.

Malcolm hung on the doorframe, hidden behind a buggish pair of sunglasses. The buzz of an aerosol can went off behind him; it did nothing to mask the throat-burning scent of cheap marijuana. Malcolm's lips were parted and dry, his dark skin cracked and peeling with an unexpected sunburn. He stared open-mouthed at the two of them like a fish out of water. "What're you doing up?"

Tucker waved at Dash to hold back. He took a deep breath and set off coughing.

Admittedly, not his best distraction. Dash easily pushed him aside to state his case. "We're under..." Dash dropped his arms to his sides. His face went blank, as if he forgot what he meant to say; a sick horror sank into Tucker's stomach. Just as quickly, Dash flushed, life filled his face and he glared with sudden fire, "The campsite is under attack and we need to call for backup."

The aerosol can hummed behind Michael. Tucker gained enough control of himself to form words.

"Call?" Malcolm repeated slowly, tasting each word. "Caaaaaall. Oh man. Who you gonna call? I know this one, it's…" He scowled. "You're not going to call the cops, are you? It's just a lake monster."

"Lake monster?"

"That's what got Troy. Ate his mind, dude."

Tucker tried to decide what type of high Malcolm might be: paranoid, unconcerned, docile, or batshit crazy. It was a strange kind of luck, Tucker realized that they might just get away with redirecting the flow of conversation. "Oh. So I guess the best thing to do is to, I don't know, go back to bed? If it's only in the lake."

Malcolm shrugged. "Past curfew. You're lucky you're not in trouble."

"We _are_ in trouble!" Dash argued. Was it the light, or were his cheeks thinner? "We need to call a professional! Ghost hunters, a priest, a - a - why… are you _laughing_?"

"You're such a big dude," Malcolm snickered, covering his mouth, "and your little voice! It's so-hold on, hold, on, Jace? Jace! You hearing this guy?" A lazy finger indicated Dash's unmoving chest.

Jason burst through the door armed with two cans of aerosol spray. His gold-rimmed sunglasses glinted, his red hair stood on end, a sandal sheltered his right foot while the left remained naked. Unlike Malcolm, Jason was wound up like a coiled spring. "You're violating curfew," he accused, "you need to go to bed. Right now."

"Listen to him talk," Malcolm insisted.

"We. Need. To. Use. Your. Phone." Dash ground out. Someone snatched Tucker's elbow and pulled him back. Danny hid just out of sight of the light, his body a weird almost-transparent shadow. " _Bad vibes_ ," he whispered.

" _Dash_?"

Danny frowned. He inspected Dash, his shoulders lifted and fell; no clue. Danny squeezed his arm. "Follow my lead." He vanished without further instruction, the transparency of his body increasing until Danny became empty air and a cold breeze. Tucker cleared his throat, uncomfortable and very slightly annoyed. "Look, guys, we just want to use your phone." He licked his lips, all eyes landing on him. Or, he assumed as much; the counselors were admittedly harder to read. He shifted. "Just for a minute."

"To call the _cops_?"

"No, no." Dash stiffened. He straightened to his full height and stood as tall and foreboding as a monolith. _Overshadowed_. Tucker pressed on, trying to find a solid lie in the heartbeat they had. "My buddy here is just freaked out from the, you know? The attack. He's keeping everyone up. He wants to call his, his, his… girlfriend." That could work. "She's always mad when he doesn't check in, and nobody has a signal up here, so we thought you might, you know… how that is, right?"

Malcolm grinned. "He's whipped."

"Correct."

Tucker could cry crocodile tears, lie on a dime, and name an alibi on a usual day; he hadn't pulled such a robotic acting routine in months. The real miracle was that Malcolm bought it. He deliberated, touching his chin. "Thought you were gonna call some fucking cops?"

"We're not," Tucker insisted, "we thought you'd let us use the phone if we were really scared."

"That's entrapment," Jason insisted.

"You don't know what entrapment even _means_ , Jace." Malcolm waved him off. He stepped aside. "You can call your girl, big dude. Solidarity. Just be fast, I could get in _big trouble_ for breaking the rules like this."

Apparently, hotboxing the counselor's cabin wasn't such an abysmal crime. Tucker went in, followed by Dash/Danny.

Jason scrunched up his nose. "Where's the other one?"

"Other what?"

"The other kid?" Jason popped his head out the door. "Weren't there three of you?"

"...No?" Tucker checked over his shoulder. He feigned a search of the campground. "Just us."

Malcolm laughed. "You're seeing shit!"

"I am not!" Jason snapped the door shut. "Bet it was the lake monster."

Malcolm's very dark skin went ashen. "Dude. Don't even joke."

Dash/Danny picked up the phone, hesitating over the keys. Tucker frowned. Dash's fingers trembled. Tucker rarely noticed Danny overshadow people anymore; had Dash built up a tolerance? A quiet dread filled him. Oddly green-glue eyes turned to Tucker. "Sam's number?" He relayed it and watched carefully. Danny struggled to maintain control, his hands slipped on the dialer. Tucker covered his nose to stifle the combination smells of marijuana and febreeze, his throat tightened, but he had a feeling it wasn't the smoke throwing him off.

A ring on the other line of the phone echoed faintly.

Tucker tensed.

The phone, cream-brown. Dash/Danny pressed it to his ear. It glistened, or reflected light, something white and fuzzy that was and wasn't a reflection.

A click, no louder than the sound of a lock sliding into place.

The lights flickered and shut off, tossing them into the dark.

Well, mostly dark.

Having a hell of a time convincing himself to appear human, Danny lit up like a nightlight. All of Dash's exposed skin glowed translucent, his eyes a neon ethereal glow that erased his pupils. For a moment, nobody moved; the counselors stood like statues waiting for a punchline. For a moment, it was like they were alone. For a moment, Tucker admired the unsettling beauty of Danny's strange magic.

Moments never last.

Malcolm screamed. His shrill screech shattered the peace; Dash/Danny dropped the phone to cover his ears. His skin dimmed, he closed his eyes, but the damage was done. "It's in him!" Jason cried, throwing himself against the wall. Their third and final counselor lifted his head from his bunk and frowned. He relaxed back on the blankets and only grunted when Jason yanked a pillow from under his head and held it up like a shield. Malcolm screamed and ran into the table, moaned, and fell over behind a chair.

"Get out!" Jason lifted his arm; a small glass pipe, still reeking from its former purpose, shone against the brighter glow of Dash's overshadowed eyes. He threw.

The pipe slammed into the wall above their heads. Tucker lunged, grabbing Dash's arm and dragging him to the door. Time to go.

"It's here for us! We're dead! We're dead, man!" From the floor Malcolm got ahold of the telephone and was plugging in 911 over and over. The dead phone gave no response. Jason picked up a chair, his eyes full of cold determination. Tucker pushed Dash through the front door and into the open air, close behind him. The heavy, thick legs of the chair brushed by his ear as he hurried down the porch; it broke into pieces on the lawn. Tucker leapt over the remains and ran out across the field; the door slammed shut behind them, but Tucker wouldn't look back. He overtook Dash/Danny, only deciding as the words fell from his mouth. "Woods!" He announced. He started panting, making a wide turn with his legs pumping and lungs tightening. "Get to - high ground - " Short, fast breaths didn't supply enough air, breathing faster didn't stop the dizziness in his head. Coils wrapped around his chest and _yanked -_ hisboot hit a rock. Tucker went flying; the ground met him in a cloud of sand that scraped his palms and got into his ears, his glasses departed from his face and he rolled. He shook. The feeling of wrongness remained heavy in his stomach.

His chest grew too tight to breathe.

He threw his arms up over his head, gasping.

A foreign pressure against his knee. "Tucker." Danny's soft, very human voice too late to help. He unzipped Tucker's only orange-lined pocket and pulled out Tucker's rescue inhaler, shaking it for him and pressing it into his hand. Tucker grasped it and took his first puff of freeing air. _I am reason, I am logic, I am in control…_

"Are we - " Tucker gasped and rolled onto the ground, breathing slowly. He made out the vague outline of Danny above him. "Followed?"

"No."

"Dash?"

Danny checked over his shoulder. Dash laid on the ground, a lump. "It felt really weird. Something in his head - " He shifted and leaned over, reaching past Tucker's shoulder and picking something up. He dusted off Tucker's glasses and gave them over. Tucker searched all of his pockets for a cloth to clean them with, found none, and used his shirt. He wasn't sure if he was on the verge of vomiting or if the bad taste of his inhaler was getting to him. Danny continued, "When the lights went out, something was - I'm not sure. Singing?" He bit his lip. Tucker nodded, waiting until he was certain of his own recovery to talk.

Dash moaned and dragged himself upright. He stretched his legs out and slumped, looking around blearily. " _Ugh_ ," Dash rubbed his head and stuck out his tongue, then sniffled and braced his hands on the ground, "not _again_."

Dash lowered the hood of his sweater. "How long was I...was it...?"

"Like twenty minutes." Danny breezed over with a smooth, easy lie. Or not a lie, technically. Danny had a knack for very misleading not-lies. "There was a ghost in the counselor's cabin. Took out all the lights. Spooked them, too, I… don't think we'll be allowed back in there."

"It used me to scare them, didn't it?" Dash pitched forward, covering his mouth. "Ugh. My mouth feels like cotton."

Only a year ago Dash reacted to overshadowing by throwing a tantrum equivalent to a two-year-old. The ghosts in Amity changed him, like they changed everyone. Danny had once vowed to stop overshadowing people, that was only a year ago too. Tucker wasn't sure what to make of the change; he sat up and pulled his phone out to check the time.

Nothing.

He frowned. Pressed the button again.

"Whatever took out the power drained my phone." Tucker considered his lungs recovered but the thought of sitting upright made his stomach flip. "It's probably drained everything in the camp." Danny turned to the mess hall. Tucker couldn't see the shield, but he felt better when Danny relaxed. "Not everything."

Bless the Fenton inventions, the true technology of the apocalypse.

Danny helped him up, Dash following suit. They gathered in a loose semi-circle, nobody really suggesting what ought to be done next. Dash nudged a pebble with his shoe. Danny observed the stars.

Tucker contemplated. "Well. Looks like phone calls are a bad idea." _Why?_ Ghosts don't typically bother with phones. If _it_ was taking out the power in response to their actions, there had to be something about making a call which threatened its survival. Maybe that old standing theory that some types of ghost were overwhelmed by too much human life meant something. Maybe it was threatened by a search party livening up the woods, with lights and noise and life… or if it knew to be afraid of Amity, if it knew about hunters…

Tucker cleared his throat. "If. If this thing doesn't want us calling anyone, um, shouldn't we?"

Dash nodded, but it wasn't his approval Tucker sought. He needed to convince Danny. "There's a ghost that's difficult to track, we can't just comb the woods all night, and it's clearly not going to show its face unless we…"

 _Tick it off_.

"Get expert help," Dash cut in, grave. "That's what I've been _saying_."

Danny slipped his hands in his pockets. His unnaturally pale skin too bright for his dark hair in the starlight. His skinny arms, torn clothes, and empty half-dead eyes painted a picture of an unhealthy, sickly teenager. Despite that, Danny had confidence in the set of his shoulders. Constantly relaxed, he moved with the graceful balance of a jaguar. The juxtaposition of this Danny to the warm, excitable but clumsy Danny without his powers was vast. "It might be a good idea."

"It's _my_ idea."

"Dash, you summoned it." Danny glared. "I'm not in the mood to put up with your dumbass ideas. We're doing what Tucker said."

Dash scowled. "Oh, and how are we going to call anyone? Have any ideas for that? The power is _out_." They were silent. Dash folded his arms. "There's a gas station down the road. It'll have a phone. Probably power."

Still, silent. Tucker rubbed his chin. "Hmm. Hey, Danny, what if we go down the road and look for a gas station or something? That should have a working phone."

Danny nodded sagely. "Another good idea by Tucker Foley."

* * *

Streets out in the middle of nowhere, leading to the middle of nowhere, did not require lamps. The moon provided light to see by, but with shadows and clouds blocking it out, Tucker found himself tripping on invisible things. His adrenaline rush hadn't kicked in yet - it usually didn't until something tried to eat him - and all he could think about was how much each step hurt. It was Danny's turn to grab his elbow and steer him around potholes and road debris. Unlike Tucker, Danny had stopped being 'tired'.

The difference between 'powers shorted out' Danny and 'full hybrid' Danny was night and day. The shadows under his eyes grew stark, almost-scars flashed and vanished on his skin, only visible in the dark. He became almost translucent, almost unreal. Ectoenergy picked up in his system, like a backup generator, but the more he relied on it the more ghostly he became. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it was the human half which sustained the ghost half; if Danny didn't sleep or eat enough his core would drain out - starved of human resources and distanced from the Ghost Zone. He'd become the ultimate grouch, deprived of a food not of this world. Despite that, Danny could hardly bring himself to eat enough, hardly ever let his eyes close, and constantly lived with the threat of running out of steam.

Once upon a time Tucker thought needing food and sleep but not wanting it was a normal half-ghost thing. That was until Vlad came into town; Tucker didn't have a lot of time to observe him, but every time he did nothing matched up. Vlad never turned his nose up to a meal. Tucker visited the Fenton's once and discovered Vlad napping on their couch. He seemed to actually be eating and sleeping more than normal humans, constantly fueling his ghost half with human energy. Danny… _didn't_. He might have, when it all started; at least Tucker sort of remembered Danny eating a lot. Tucker couldn't bring it up; comparing hybrid logistics and daring to say Vlad appeared _healthier_ was a recipe for disaster.

Tucker did his best to help. Kept food on him at all times. Offered to keep watch when Danny slept on his desk. Got in more trouble than he needed to. No matter what he did, he continued to be consumed with a feeling of inadequacy. His best friend only ever seemed to get worse. Tucker zipped his coat up to his neck, frowning. Danny coughed. He put his arm around Tucker to lead him around broken glass in the road. They followed Dash down a thin lane framed by a wall of trees; without GPS Dash fancied himself their guide to this supposed gas station. Tucker rubbed his eyes and leaned on Danny.

"You tired?"

"No."

"We can stop."

Tucker shook his head. Dash paraded on ahead, a brave voyeur in the haunted night. Tucker sensed something had gone unsaid, that something was wrong, but he couldn't pin down what it was. Danny seldom responded to conversations about vague unease; he was himself an icon of unease, often the source of it. He didn't like to be told about that kind of thing unless Tucker could reasonably articulate it. The dizzy, fuzzy sensation of staying up way too late after having got up far too early interfered with his reasoning.

Movement helped activate his second wind, but it also emphasized how much his feet hurt. "Danny?"

"Hmm?"

"Your arm is nice." Danny squeezed his shoulder in thanks. Tucker licked his lips. "But you're kind of colder than the arctic."

"Oh." Danny dropped his arm; it dangled awkwardly between them. He kicked a rock along the road, followed to where it landed, and kicked it again. He repeated this until the rock disappeared off the road. "I'm sorry."

Tucker could ask. Could bring it all up again, could get into the deep nitty-gritty emotional conversation about how his best friend is sort-of dead and sort-of not incredible at coping with it. They could spend hours in theoretical conversation about what was 'wrong' with Danny now that his heart only beat when it wanted to.

Or they could focus on the mission.

"Have you sensed anything?"

Danny shrugged. He scanned the woods, but by the set of his frown Tucker already knew the answer. "Nope. Not even little ones."

"Think they were scared off?"

"Maybe."

"That's weird, right?" Tucker chewed his lip. "I mean, you've got really good at noticing ghosts and stuff," Danny claimed it was his most developed power, "unless it's _not_ a ghost."

Gravel crunched under their feet. Danny scrutinized him until Tucker grinned, the fake sort of grin he only used when he didn't want to put up with ambient gut-wrenching ghost moods. "I'm only saying, you know, could be a werewolf. Full moon's in two weeks. A bi-weekly werewolf."

Danny snorted. Tucker relaxed; he shouldn't have worried. Danny's fine. Danny's not upset. Danny's... "Or it's a vampire. They're about 80 percent real."

"Only if you're Vlad Masters."

Danny smiled. "Good one. Very funny. A-plus."

Danny's a lot of things. Cheerful at the right moments is only one of them.

"Hey! Lovebirds!" Dash stomped his feet. He stood at a bend in the a road with his index finger outstretched towards a soft yellow tucked behind a mask of trees. "I _told you_ there was a place out here!"

"Would you look at that," Danny muttered. "Dash was right."

"I feel like it doesn't even out all the times he's been wrong."

They caught up to Dash. A squat building huddled behind a thicket of elm trees, dim light pooled from broad square outside walls, once yellow, were brown with age. A neon sign over the single swing-door entrance only half-functioned, and the parking lot contained a simple wide propane tank. "This is clearly a diner," Tucker announced. The Nasty Burger had been styled in a more 'modern' fifties throwback diner, but this was closer to the real thing. A pickup truck sat in the parking lot, gathering rust. They approached.

"Eerie."

"Huh?"

Danny nodded to the red sign over the door. _Merry Marie's_ was still legible with half the letters burned out, spelling _errie_. Tucker got chills. "I already have a bad feeling about this."

"Don't be a wimp, Foley." Dash boldly pushed the front door open. A bell rang, hollow. "We're _getting_ that phone."

All the hairs on Tucker's arms stood up. He exchanged glances with Danny and nodded. "It's why we're here, Tuck," Danny whispered. "Nothing we haven't done before."

The diner had a scratched up and worn checker-patterned floor, faded red-and-white squares resembled dust more than a pattern. Surprisingly, the floor was the only old thing about the place; a pristine chrome and red counter guarded a small kitchenette, coffee area, and silver kitchen door. Red booths lined the windows and a burgundy jukebox hummed static in a back corner.

Cozy. Cozy and empty. Cozy and empty and creepy. Not cozy.

Dash leaned over the counter and peeked behind stacks of white mugs and classic espresso machine. "Hello?"

His voice echoed on spotless appliances.

"Just sit down, Dash." Danny chose a red booth and sank into it. Dash inspected the counter, swiped away crumbs that didn't exist, and resigned himself to the booth with Danny. He slumped against the table and regarded the wall of Chevrolet photographs behind the counter with suspicion.

"In my experience it's usually the espresso machine that comes to life." Tucker sat down next to him. "Ghosts in portraits is an overrated cliché."

Dash grunted; he picked up a glass salt shaker and started spinning the lid on and off, white crystals sprinkled on the table. Danny pulled out the tableside menu and started skimming. His fingernails had a collection of black and purple stains underneath them. Tucker looked at his own hands; in the light they were equally as filthy. Seemingly oblivious, Danny chewed on his thumbnail while he read the menu. "There's only like four things on here," he announced. "Who writes out a new line with the same price for different styles of eggs? And why is hard boiled like, ten cents more…"

Dash started tapping the table. His foot joined on the linoleum. "Nobody even eats hard boiled eggs, do they? Not actively. They just kind of appear in places and you just, you know, eat them because they're there." Danny considered the existential consequences of egg preferences. Dash started rapping his knuckles against the table, every hit more violent than the last. Salt bounced with each tap. Danny flipped the menu over. "I don't even know if I _want_ eggs."

"How," Dash's incessant tapping manifested into a small orchestra of knuckles and feet and a salt shaker, "can you be thinking about _food_?"

Danny set the menu down, having the most curious expression of someone who only just realized he still had company. He frowned, inspected Dash, and just held up his hands; showing they were empty, innocent. "A guy's gotta eat."

Dash abandoned the entire concept of logical response and went back to fiddling with the salt shaker. His foot made frantic music on the linoleum.

"Oh! Goodness!"

Tucker jumped. Dash dropped the salt and let out a squawk. Danny replaced the menu in its silver holder by the window. A waitress with strawberry hair pinned in a messy bun and a coffee-stained apron hurried over to them. Her lipstick glinted in the fluorescents, painted the same shade of red as the tables and chairs. "I didn't hear you come in! Now. What's this?" She stopped in front of them and braced her wrists on her hips. "A couple of boys in here this late? You must be wanting something pretty bad."

"Coffee." Danny stretched out. "Some pancakes. Maybe… three eggs, any style." She pulled a pad of paper from her apron and started scribbling. Danny lifted his eyebrows at them. "What about you guys?"

"A _phone_!" Dash nearly vibrated out of his seat, full of disbelief. "We _need_ to use the phone!"

"One phoooo-n-e." The waitress repeated, pen carefully shaping each letter. She looked at Tucker. "And you?"

She had teeth the same off-white as old porcelain dolls that collected grey dust in their unglazed cheeks. Tucker blinked; her intense stare didn't return the favor. "I'm not hungry." He broke eye contact first, but still felt watched.

High heels clicked against the floor. She walked over behind the main counter and pulled down a mug. Dash was about ready to leap over Tucker. The only thing holding him back was probably the same aftertaste of something _wrong_ that settled down in Tucker's stomach. Danny interlocked his fingers and cracked them. He got out of the booth. "This should only take a minute."

Tucker hesitated. "Heard that one before."

"What are you guys _doing_?" Dash demanded.

"Getting that phone, duh," Danny smiled, "calm down."

An ice-like soothing peace sank under his skin. Tucker frowned. Dash sank back into the booth and folded his arms, not even noticing his snap-shift change in mood. " _Fine_." Danny turned around and leaned on the chrome counter. The waitress set a glass mug across from him, full of a thick brown liquid. She wiped her hands over stains on the trim of her apron. "Why are you out so late, dear?" Red lipstick pulled back over her teeth. "Wanting something?"

Danny nodded. "My phone's dead. Can we use yours?"

Her hand rose, fingernails the _exact_ same color as her lips, the chairs, the floors. She pointed to the kitchen door, gaze set on Danny. "We have a telephone in the back." Her hand fell. Danny rounded the counter. "Just ask for the phone, dear," she explained, pushing the door open for him. "He's in the very back."

Danny shot Tucker a furtive glance, and then was gone; the metal door swung shut behind him. The waitress returned to the main counter, pulling cups from shelves and wiping them with a stained cloth.

They waited.

The jukebox hummed.

Dash's foot began a new melody.

Tucker started tapping the table in tune.

The waitress cleaned three cups.

The jukebox hummed.

They waited.

Dash paused. He frowned and started to scan the counter. "Foley," he said, "do you feel...?"

It started in his throat. A tightness bloomed and dropped heavy stones inside his stomach. Goosebumps raced up and down his arms, a shiver ran down his spine. He reached into his pocket for the small lipstick tube with a tiny embossed _F_ on its side. Tucker ran his thumb over two holes in the lining. "Yeah," the blaster warmed in his palm, "that would be a gut feeling."

"Here you are."

Dash jumped. The waitress pushed two plates onto the table; pancakes and three simple hard-boiled eggs. She wiped her fingers down her coffee-stained apron. "Now for you two boys. Who's first?"

Tucker closed his fingers over the blaster, hiding it easily. He smiled up at her. Dash tapped his shoulder. "Oh, we're just waiting on…" His throat went dry. The waitress ran her fingers over the trim of her apron. Dash's tapping grew pointed.

"On?" She said. Her red nails flicked over the trim around a thin brown stain. Underneath her white apron was a wide brown husk, and sprouting from that husk were approximately eight legs. Eight legs, a thick round abdomen; brown, striped yellow. She followed his gaze and flushed. "Oh goodness." The legs shifted and took a small step back. She flicked strawberry hair from her eyes. "Don't mind that, now."

Tucker's stomach dropped right down into his tape-and-glue sneakers. Moist breath filled his ear. "My gut says time to go," Dash whispered, grabbing his shoulders. Tucker dug his feet in and refused to be ejected from the booth like a human shield. "Uh - uh, well." He looked up at her. "Miss. You're, um. You look nice."

She smiled, cheeks flushing scarlet. "Oh darling, thank you! That's just sweet. Can I get you anything?"

Dash became roughly the same color as a corpse. Tucker only nodded, his smile more a show of teeth. "...Coffee?"

She smiled and did not move.

"Or maybe it's not me that needs something," Tucker reasoned. Dash dug his fingers into his shoulders. "I'm really good at helping if you're lost, or have some unfinished… webs?"

" _What are you doing?_ " Dash hissed between clenched teeth.

" _My job_."

The arachnoid woman laughed, her voice alarming in its honey sweetness. "Oh goodness! No, no, I..." She frowned, all eight of her legs lifted and climbed closer. "There was something. Something I must do." She sighed. "All these thoughts!" She laughed, her eyes as colorful as the void. "I claim what's mine. Ours? _Mine_."

Simple weapons, miniature ectoblasters. Two small holes in the side of the tube set with sensors directed when to fire, power up, or power down. A swipe from the bottom to the top charged and activated the weapon; a swipe in the opposite direction fired. They packed a big punch, with a bright flash and very little recoil. Tucker directed his palm at the monster and shut his eyes for the half a second it took to swipe his thumb down.

Unlike the electrostatic of a full ectoweapon, the lipstick blaster made as much sound as flicking on a light. One small pop accompanied a dazzling flash of energy; the blast landed point-blank in the face of the arachnoid waitress. Her lips fell open. Tucker threw himself forward, he slammed his shoulder into her stomach to throw her off balance. Tucker fell outside of the booth and rolled away, jumping to his feet as soon as his sneakers found floor.

The half-giant-spider-woman rubbed one of her eyes and frowned. Not a mark on her. "My mascara," she muttered, "it's smudged."

Tucker blinked.

A shot that close was enough to knock _Plasmius_ flat.

Dash, pressed against the window and trapped in the booth, pointed at something beside Tucker. Tucker scanned the counter and couldn't see a damn thing worth noticing. The waitress removed a pin from her hair; it glinted the same chrome as the counters, sharp and long. She smiled at him, her silent feet padding closer. Tucker backed away. He held up the blaster. "St-stay back." His back hit a wall. She shook her head. He fired again; a bright hot flash washed over the creature, catching on all the hairs of her spindly legs with an electric sizzle. The blast dissipated. No effect.

Her smile dropped. "You're going to mess up my hair."

 _New plan, new plan, new plan_ \- Tucker's fingers shook. His back pressed up hard against the wall. _Where's Danny?_ The spider's legs made no noise as they cleared the space between them. Tucker couldn't find enough air for his lungs. _Danny, need Danny, get help_. The arachnoid stopped in front of him and considered his neck, doubtless measuring where best her long needle-like pin should strike.

A clatter. Dash climbed on top of the red and chrome furnishings behind the spider-beast, his arm aloft. _Oh no._ Tucker shook his head. _No._ In Dash's hand was a glass salt shaker. _Bad plan._ Dash unscrewed the cap. _Nope. Idiot. Idiot._ "Die, Shelob!" He dumped the salt all over the beast's round abdomen.

Salt didn't _actually_ work on ghosts.

Except.

 _Apparently_.

This one.

The waitress shrieked. She jerked away, legs spasming violently. Dash met his eyes and pointed to a barstool. "Now, Foley!"

Tucker dropped his ectoblaster and leapt at the stool, wielding it legs-out. The disoriented spider held up her arms. He didn't have time to think about it, striking under her hands and up against what would be a human ribcage. Her many legs shook and she backed away. Dash scooped up another salt bottle and emptied it over her head. The monster collapsed, shrieks turning into a high-frequency wail. Dash shouted. Tucker understood. He slammed the barstool down over her head with all of his might.

The creature made a noise, legs uncurling from the ground and stretching toward him. Tucker panicked and hit her again, and again, bringing the stool up over his head and smashing the bug flat. Dash scrambled off the table, his chest heaving, watching Tucker strike until the giant yellow legs stopped twitching. A black liquid, thick as oil, pooled underneath the creature. Her human torso lay against the worn tiles, her red lips hung open. Tucker clutched the stool, panting, shaking. Her hair tangled loosely around her eyes and nose, smeared with black oil, skull cracked and caved in.

The lights flickered and went dark. A smell like burning hair wafted from the body, and in the moment it took to process the darkness the lights flicked back on. Tucker's arms shook. He could only stare at the human part of the woman, the red blood caked around her head - misshapen, wrong. A corpse framed against the red and white checkered floor. He didn't notice that the diner no longer resembled a diner. He didn't see that the photos of Chevys along the walls became drink coolers, or that the espresso machine turned into a cash register. He didn't notice the booths morph into an aisle of snacks and toiletries.

Dash dropped his salt shaker; it was unchanged. "The...the fuck?"

They stood inside a gas station convenience store. Through the window, a rusting truck sat next to a collection of fuel pumps. Tucker blinked, lifting his head and shaking. He licked his lips, uncomprehending, although he had a feeling he shouldn't look down.

He did anyway.

He wasn't holding a chair anymore.

Clenched tight in both of his hands was a crowbar, curve out. The end was covered in a warm, wet substance which dripped lazily on the coffee-stained white shirt of a woman with a mutilated face and strawberry hair. She had two legs, one of them was bent wrong, her blue jeans torn at the knees. Body limp. A bloody nametag pinned to her shirt.

"Is she dead?"

Of course she was dead. She didn't have a face.

He'd smashed it in.

Tucker dropped the crowbar. More accurately, it slipped from his completely numb fingers and clattered on the checkered floor. He took a step back and his boot slipped on something slick. He hit the ground, stunned. Tucker covered his mouth and shook his head, refusing what he saw. "I didn't - that wasn't, we weren't, she's…"

Dash stared at the remains. He clenched his jaw.

"I'm sorry," Tucker whispered to her. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so…" His throat closed up.

"I told you," Dash said. "It's a demon."

 _It's a_ _person_. Tucker couldn't breathe. The bloody remains of a _human being_ at his feet. Blood soaked into his jeans. He clutched his chest in an attempt to pull the heaviness off. His fingers shook horribly, his vision blurred. He needed to breathe, he needed air, he needed to do something about the dead woman -

Something cold and wet touched his wrist. _Blood?!_ Tucker shrieked and threw himself away, gasping, crashing onto the linoleum and scrambling away. His hands fell into the sticky pools of blood around the body - the dead body, he killed her, he's responsible - Tucker dropped, striking his elbow hard, and scuttled from the body until his back hit a wall made of breakfast. It shook, a rack of fruits on the endcap tumbling to the floor and scattering apples. Spots danced in his vision, black, no air in his lungs.

"Tucker!" He couldn't _breathe_. "Tucker!"

An icy slap resonated hard across his face. The stars in his eyes subsided long enough to gather the familiar curve of a nose, a collection of three freckles around a curve of lips that only became really prominent in a deep frown. He'd know those freckles anywhere. _Danny_. Something deep inside of him stilled, a cold, foreign logic settling inside of his head. Ghost-calm. Danny crouched in front of him, his hair matted down and dripping over his eyes and short sleeve v-neck clinging to his thin arms. Tucker blinked. _Danny_. Danny, here, with him. He spread his lips and pulled in a short breath.

Danny unzipped Tucker's orange-lined pocket. He pulled out an inhaler, shook it, and pressed it to Tucker's lips. It was a pressure, but not a sensation. Tucker felt numb. He took his first freeing gulp of air. It fought against the pressure inside his chest, pushing some of the heavy weight off. After a few more, the coils around his lungs fell and Danny's more invasive and freezing ghost-calm faded, leaving behind a headache.

Tucker clutched his inhaler. His lungs cleared, his head stopped spinning, but the world settling into reality wasn't washing any blood from his hands. It didn't make the scene behind Danny any easier. Danny waited. Tucker cleared his hoarse throat. "...You're soaking wet."

Danny shrugged.

"Why?"

"I was drowning."

"Oh." Tucker zipped up the pocket with his rescue inhaler. "Well, I just killed someone[1]."

* * *

 **[1]** A note on violence towards women:

Often what happens in fiction is something reflected in today's realities. Maddison Wood wrote an article responding to the mass murder and tragedy in Orlando, FL in her blog article, _I'm Tired_ , stating that, "Currently on television, 4 percent of characters identify as LGBT. In 2016, about 40 percent of that 4 percent have already died[2]." As it is with violence towards the queer community, violence towards women in consumed media makes violence towards women in the real world a plausible and approachable concept.

I am writing a story about people. The people I chose to write about are all male, hence the setting of a boy's-only summer camp to make that kind of writing more plausible. To make up for the overwhelming male cast I have made every _possible_ extra character female. The above example is someone who has died horribly. This story is not able to focus on the complex discussion of how violence towards women influences our culture, hence this note. This story _will_ be discussing issues of identity, sexuality, disabilities, and toxic relationships. I will not be leaving future notes about those themes.

 **[2]** _maddisonwood im-tired/_

-Carrie

 _Up next:_  
Excerpt 3  
 **Mystery Trio No. 2**  
 _This would never happen if we had cell phones._


	6. Mystery Trio No 2

Excerpt 3.

 **Mystery Trio No. 2**  
 _This would never happen if we had cell phones._

* * *

Maddie Thompson leaned against the bark of a mountainous pine. She pulled a silver case from her pocket and produced a single unfiltered cigarette. Jack huffed, summiting a boulder that he could have walked around, but climbed it because _Maddie_ climbed it and he refused to be the only who who didn't take the fun route.  
She grinned. "Are you still cold?"

"I - am not - " He stopped and promptly sank against a tree, eyeing the next five feet of steep incline with dread. "How is it I'm in worse shape than - " A blaze turned Maddie's face orange until the cigarette lit; red embers glowed as the dim result. Jack watched the first plume of smoke part from Maddie's lips and drift in front of her face.

She shrugged, "I work out more than you."

"I don't _smoke_."

"Maybe you should," she teased, "couldn't make it worse, could it?"

Jack, typically, took her entirely seriously. "You know how smoke works, right? It gets in your lungs and causes cancer and makes it hard to breathe and - "

Maddie rolled her eyes. "I know how it works, Jack." She pushed herself from the tree and turned to survey the hill that they would now have to climb down, a slope that was perhaps even more steep than the one that they climbed. "It's a joke."

"Well," he finally caught up to her and put his hands on his knees, far less excited about stumbling down trails in the dark. "Smoking isn't a joke."

"I'll stop when I need to," Maddie promised, planning her route down. She skirted the summit to better identify a path where an inexperienced hiker would have it easiest. "It helps with stress," she said, "and I have to make it through college somehow."

She squinted at the valley opening below, something flickered in the distance; a light between the trees. For a moment, her heart stopped, her breath caught, and the thought of blazing trees and fleeing animals filled her mind.

 _Fire?_

Jack snagged the nearest branch to balance against the slope. "Mads?"

"What's that?" Maddie pointed. Very nearly an expert outdoorsman, she knew what a fire looked like, and this - it didn't _move_ like a fire. Fire flickered. But the faded red-orange light inside the underbrush reminded her more of ground kilns than it did flame. (Except this wasn't her summer in Mexico, and there wasn't a traditional ceramicist in the whole of Illinois.)

"Old man Algernon said this area was closed to hikers during construction," Jack pressed his lips together and leaned away from the tree, intently focused. His warm breath tickled Maddie's cheek and the thought came to her, unbidden, that Jack radiated with the same cozy warmth of winter sweaters and fireside hot coco. She blushed.

A gentle, cooling breeze brought her thoughts back to the present. "I'm not sure what it is." Maddie checked her compass and made note of the cardinal direction they faced. "Could be what we're looking for. Getting your coat can wait, right?" She jumped down the hill in a serpentine pattern, toward the light and away from the lake. Jack followed.

They traveled to the bottom of the hill and found the road, an unmarked slab of gravel in desperate need of repairs. Maddie crossed quickly and lead them into a ravine that sank between two boulder-filled slopes and melted into a grassy meadow. Grass as tall as their knees disguised the mud their footsteps sank into. A stream carved its way through the meadow, and they followed it toward a giant porous boulder that broke the monotony of the grass and mud. Beside the boulder they found the source of the light; a small, gleaming red-orange pool, caked with a cooling black crust. It spat hissing steam into the air and popped with molten liquid. Maddie's eyes stung just to look at it, and in the next step she encountered a wave of heat that stopped her in her tracks.

Sweat appeared on her neck and forehead. "That's…" Jack licked his lips. "That's not possible."

" _Lava_?" Maddie crouched. Stinging, burning heat surrounded her.

In the center of a cool meadow that had not witnessed volcanic activity in thousands of years, _lava_. Grass, full and green and budding with seeds, curved out and up from under the bed of lava, some of it even touching its rolling hot surface. The pool bubbled and popped, but none of the surrounding grass appeared even remotely distressed. Her feet sank further into mud. Maddie inched closer to the slab, her nose and throat burning from the heat.

"Don't touch it!"

"I won't." She wasn't sure if her voice carried beyond an awed whisper. The lava - if that's what it was - made no geological sense. For one, an uneven patch of meadow wasn't exactly _volcanic_ in any sense. The stone beside the pool, just like the boulders lining the meadow, was basalt (an igneous rock), but nothing in the region had reach a melting point for millennia. When it was too hot to get any closer Maddie tossed her half-used cigarette on top of the pool.

It burst into flame and sank under the simmering surface. Maddie backed away quickly, rubbing at the heat on her eyes and face. Jack put an arm around her shoulders and held her back, as if worried she might get too close again. "How did it get here?" he asked.

She didn't have an answer. One college geology class never really prepared her to explain volcanic refuse vacationing with a bunch of wildflowers. She shook her head, "It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe it _isn't_ lava? Maybe it's something else?"

He didn't say what. There wasn't any kind of answer. Maddie rubbed her nose, her skin fought the attention and threatened to crack. "We should find a way to test it. Do you think there's anything back at camp that might - "

The arm around Maddie's shoulders tightened and dragged her backward; fat embers popped like grease off a frying pan and the pool hissed. It crept across the grass, expanding in all directions. The two of them were blasted by another wave of hot gas, and then the pool began to dim. Its bright oranges and reds grew gray, and then black, and then - miraculously - it faded into the same consistency and texture of a shadow. Unharmed grass sprouted through the shadow, which dimmed until it disappeared completely.

It left no trace. The earth was unscorched, the space that the lava had occupied filled with tall and healthy wild grass. Maddie untangled herself from Jack and walked cautiously to the space the pool occupied. Mud threatened to capture her shoes. Stalks of foliage bent in the wind. The area was cold and damp, though residual heat continued to sting her cheeks. "That… _happened_ , right?"

"I saw it," Jack affirmed.

"But…" Maddie dropped to her knees and _searched_. She needed something, anything that might provide evidence of their experience. Her fingers found mud, more mud, and pebbles. "That's not possible!" Water seeped into her jeans. "It has to be something, it has to make sense, it has to have an explanation! This kind of thing doesn't just _disappear_ \- " Maddie stopped. She found something that didn't fit the calm meadow and scooped up a handful of dirt that contained a small sample of ash - still warm - smelling faintly of tobacco and menthol. "Unless…" Her jaw hung open, "It's _paranormal_."

Maddie yanked her cigarette case from her pocket and dumped the contents to collect the sample of ash and earth and grass. "Paranormal," Jack repeated, "... ghost… _lava_?"

"If people can become ghosts, why not events?" Maddie theorized, snapping her cigarette case closed and gingerly passing it up to Jack. "It could have been thousands, even millions of years ago!"

"But ghosts are post-conscious beings." Jack replied slowly, brushing his thumb over the tin case. "Lava doesn't have a consciousness, does it?"

Maddie picked up the items she'd dumped on the ground - six cigarettes, two with filters and four without, a tampon, a business card from _Alderto's,_ and her student ID. "We don't know that!" She peeled her jacket off of her shoulders and laid it out on the ground where she thought the edge of the impossible pool might have been. Then she stood and marched to the stream to pluck out fist-sized rocks. "Our research is only beginning, and we can't assume to know everything! There's got to be a theory out there we haven't thought of. Who knows? Maybe ghosts aren't conscious at all!" Her face flushed with excitement. "Help me collect some rocks to mark where it was. We need to establish a radius of study while it's still fresh."

"Mads."

She plucked three medium sized stones from the water.

"Maddie."

She tossed one back, thinking it too slimy.

"Hey, _Thompson_!"

Maddie turned around, " _What_?"

Jack pointed up the ravine where the meadow stretched and turned back into forest. The mountain was one of three that surrounded Algernon's crater-shaped lake; between its clustered vegetation was another orange glow, definitely _not_ a fire. "Another one."

The rocks all tumbled back into the stream, forgotten. Maddie threw herself at Jack and snatched his arm, "Let's go!" she tugged.

Jack flushed, "But -Mads - we're forgetting someone?"

"Vlad can take care of himself!" Maddie pulled. "It's gonna vanish! We have to go _now_!"

Jack hesitated. He had a feeling he might follow her to the ends of the earth, but it wasn't a feeling he understood until that moment, surrounded by unnatural occurrences, faced with the completely untamed vigor in Maddie's eyes as she pulled on his arm. His heart skipped a beat, he grinned with confidence that wasn't real, "Lead on, Mads!"

They raced up the hill, against time, against logic, but with the fire of discovery illuminating the path ahead.

* * *

Donated by an uncle living in upstate New York, Jack's truck - once a glossy beauty of yellow paint and a classically fitted hubcap - resembled something akin to junkyard trash. The back bumper was not only dented but hanging on two bolts. The paint had chipped and worn away, the exposed metal grew several colonies of rust. The truck's bed sported a crack from corner to corner and the engine overheated twice on the drive from Madison. Its saving grace was the radio. Vlad climbed into the driver's seat and dusted off the old CB that nestled just above their actual radio, the one meant for news and music rather than short range communication. He lifted the keys off the dashboard and started the engine. The old car roared.

Vlad clutched the steering wheel and bit his lip. Eyes hidden in shadows watched him. He closed the door and locked it, just in case his paranoia was valid. The musty-smelling cab provided him with an illusion of security, at least enough of it to inspire Vlad to pick up the CB receiver. "Hello?" He asked.

Vlad turned the volume knob until the sound of static made him uncomfortable. He held the receiver's square microphone close to his lips. "Transmitting from Algernon's Lake, is anyone there?" He waited. Static. "Reporting an emergency. Repeat: an emergency. I have - I lost - my friends are missing in the forest. Over." Vlad listened to the buzz of the radio, his pulse accelerated. He wrapped his free hand around the steering wheel to ground himself.

He did not look outside of the car.

Nothing's out there anyway.

It's _fine_.

"I repeat, is anyone receiving? Over."

The smelled of sun-baked leather and dust found a way down his throat. He started to breathe harder, trying not to cough. "We're in the country." Vlad spoke out loud to stave off the creeping sensation of a menacing silence. "People have radios, they use them. _Calm down_." He did not calm down. "... Then again. In the mountains, with all the trees a signal like this can't travel more than ten miles." Vlad believed optimism was a farce to hide from fear; he rationalized and organized facts with nothing but cold logic. _Reason conquers fear._ Vlad closed his eyes. He dropped his shoulders.

The keys were in the ignition.

The engine purred.

He had fuel.

Vlad made a decision. It wasn't tasteful. "I _hate_ driving." He fumbled with the seatbelt and adjusted the center mirror. He was pretty sure that a gas station was fairly close down the road; they'd at least have a working phone. "If anyone can hear me," Vlad spoke into the radio. "my friends are missing in the woods. I'm en route to find help. Over."

He backed slowly out of the campsite. The truck lurched onto the road with a great shudder and ambled around pot holes. The radio hummed electrostatic. Headlights illuminated trees. He drove at fifteen miles per hour, then twenty, then thirty, and was sailing past forty when a halo of gold light appeared around a bend in the road. He hit the brakes, believing that the car would go skidding into a halt, but it merely slowed naturally like most cars traveling at reasonable speeds do.

A small gas station with rounded corners and shrubs overgrown in the parking lot illuminated the darkness as the only glimmer of civilization between the local town and Algernon's construction site. It largely served to supply the summer hikers that usually combed valleys and mountains in the summer. He parked next to a large propane tank. There were no other cars in the vicinity, and although eight p.m. had come and gone, the lights inside of the station remained on.

He climbed out of the cab. His legs shook and he had to pause to compose himself. He ached for company, for the feeling of the _watching forest_ to go away, for normalcy. Vlad slung his camera around his neck where it felt solid and safe; the gas station promised to restore normalcy. An _OPEN_ sign in the window had a hand-painted red inscription beneath the pressed letters read _pardon our dust_. He stepped inside. A silver bell chimed, florescent lights stung. To his left stretched the shelves of a convenience store, stocked with sheaves of wood and hearty foods and a few spare cook pots. The other half of the building was hidden behind a plastic tarp that he _immediately_ lifted to check for monsters.

A white and chrome counter had been half destroyed, presumably, by the sledgehammer that rested against it. Wedged between a wall and the front windows a sheaf of plywood protected a tremendous stack of red chairs and tables from scratching the glass. In the center of the dusty floor a very clearly dead jukebox laid on its side. Not really satisfied that nothing would leap from the dismantled diner to eat him, Vlad let the tarp fall back into place. A piece of paper taped to the plastic read _UNDER CONSTRUCTION_ in faded black pen.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and followed the tarp to the register.

Nobody stood behind it.

"Hello?" Vlad leaned over the counter and peered into what he presumed was the break room. Empty, save for a grill pressed up against the back wall.

His skin crawled.

"Anyone in here?" Vlad asked. The hair on his neck and arms stood on edge.

First Maddie and Jack, now _this_. Maybe something was…

"Nope." Vlad marched to a phone that rested between a coffee pot and a postcard stand. "The cashier is on break. Smoking, probably," He yanked the phone down and spun its old-fashioned dialer. "There is _nothing_ supernatural about this."

He pressed the phone to his ear.

 _Wet_.

His stomach dropped. Vlad pulled the phone away. Water bubbled out of the holes in the receiver and dripped down his arm. He clenched his teeth, _reason conquers fear_. "Hilarious," Vlad said, swiping away the top layer. The water only resurfaced. "But I'm definitely _not_ scared." He shook the phone, droplets scattered, and the steady leak transformed into more of a gushing. A pool began to form at his feet, spreading with each second. Vlad dropped the phone and let it crash against the wall; it cracked along the handle, liquid began pouring through the cracks.

 _Okay. Mistakes were made._

Not to worry.

He's a professional.

Vlad lifted his camera. His shoes began to soak. He moved and the moment his foot landed he understood that it was _wrong_. His heel caught the slick floor at exactly the wrong angle, and he went flying. His elbows crashed into the postcards, his fingers scraped against the wall, and then a loud _crack_.

A ceiling. Lights flickering. Dazed. Pieces of the postcard display jabbed into his back. Water soaked his hair. Vlad's fingers slipped, struggling with the task of pulling himself pack up. Nausea rolled, he sank back to the floor. A black case beside him. His camera, on the floor, the back of the case open and exposed. He pressed his lips together, uncertain if that was _right_ or _wrong_. Inside of the case, a black-brownish strip of film exposed to the bright lights above. Water circled the camera, slowly rising. Any higher and it would spill into the film chamber. Brown leaves moved on the waves around the camera, riding on the water with exceptional balance. _The leaves had legs_. Raft spiders, Vlad recognized the species from his high school arachnid phase. The long hairs on their feet allowed them to hunt while walking across still pools. Floating spiders drifted toward his equipment, the open case, the exposed film.

The.

Exposed.

Film.

" _No_!" He scrambled, everything hurt. Vlad heaved himself up, dizzy but determined. Water swelled over his wrists as he clambered onto his hands and knees and lunged at the camera, spiders flipped under the violent surface. He snatched it up shook it clean, then closed

the case. Breathing hard, Vlad stopped until black spots cleared from his vision and then hauled himself up. Postcards floated around his sneakers. His breathing came shallow and labored, but one instinct shouted above the rest.

 _Escape_.

He clutched a shelf to help himself stay steady while edging towards the door. The water swelled over his ankles and swirled around him with a surprisingly active current. Spiders crept out of dark corners, around boxes, on top of shelves; they gathered in moving brown hoards of wiggling legs. A thousand eyes followed his retreat with ominous intent. He made it to the door, shaking from head to foot, and pressed it open.

The door gave way with no resistance. Forced to cling to the metal frame as water cascaded into the parking lot, Vlad could only watch helplessly when his camera case popped back open and a roll of _supposedly secured_ film dropped into the rushing current.

Vlad stumbled outside, the smell of rain and storm overwhelmed him and he didn't fully remember opening the car door until he was climbing inside of Jack's truck. The ignition roared, he slammed on the gas, the car gave a violent shudder and shot leapt at the wall of glass. Vlad neglected to put the car in reverse; in a panic he yanked the steering wheel to the left. The car tipped.

Flying is a strange sensation.

A weightlessness that Vlad could only compare to skating on paved ice filled his chest. He watched the hub of the car scratch a window pane in horror; the glass shuddered in reply just as the car completed its turn and detached from the building. The two wheels in the air struck the ground squealing, the car bounced like a rock skipping over water. It raced over asphalt and dove into the brambles beside the convenience store, branches clawing at the doors windows. Vlad took his foot from the gas a moment too late, the car burst out of the thistles and the headlights caught a glimpse of a massive black trunk before they plummeted into it.

The crash yanked his whole body; the wheel slammed into him, his ears rung, he lost all the air in his lungs. The hood _crunched_ , the front of the truck wrapped around the tree while the back wheels lifted from the ground. Vlad's head hit windshield and his skin split.

The car collapsed in a great cloud of dust.

An owl hooted and took off from a nearby tree. The wind carried a foreign, almost imperceptible song as it whistled through the trees. Clouds covered the moon.

Vlad did not move.

It wasn't because he knew he couldn't move, but because he had no desire to find out. Warm liquid oozed from his eyebrow to his nose. His bones vibrated with adrenaline. He sank down the steering wheel until his chin landed on top of it, and there he stayed. A bad taste pooled in his mouth. He closed his eyes and did not think about blood or spiders or water in places it should not be. He tried not to think about anything at all, except for the fact that he hated driving. _Passionately_ hated driving. Hated driving and cars and car crashes with every fiber of his _being_.

Vlad remained slumped against the steering wheel meticulously deciding what else he hated until the radio crackled to life. The volume was still turned obnoxiously high, a stately voice made him wince and reach for the knob to turn it down, only then confirming that his right hand could in fact function. A man claiming to be an officer over a fuzzy CB connection gave a weather report. Something about clouds and storms and "going to be a big one." Stretching his arm to the radio felt like stretching it across miles, and convincing his fingers to wrap around the receiver took more energy than his final exams. Despite this, Vlad brought the radio to his lips. "Hello?"

The crack in his voice surprised him. Vlad licked his lips (iron, blood) and breathed through the liquid that pooled between his teeth. He spat, sticky wetness dribbled from his chin. "H-help," he ventured, "I need help."

His stomach flipped. Maybe no one would hear. Maybe the receiver was broken. Maybe the weather report was a figment of his imagination, or a radio broadcast with no one on the other end to hear him. Maybe he was going to die out here.

" _This is Sheriff Cobb,_ " the voice on the other line responded, distant but intensely serious. " _What is your emergency? Over_."

Vlad argued with his thumb to get it to press, and then had to convince his throat to make words. "Crashed." He blinked at the blurry, fuzzy radio. It took him a moment to realize that he need to concentrate before it came into focus, and a moment longer than that to realize his thumb was still on the button. He let go. His head spun.

" _\- location? Over_."

Vlad lifted his head, peeling out of sticky residue. He tasted salt and his head swam. He propped his chin on the wheel and fought a violent urge to throw up.

" _Hello?_ "

Vlad cleared his throat. His shoulder became pins and needles. The arm attached to it rested on the dashboard, and Vlad experienced a small relief that the elevated limb responded and his fingers twitched on command. He slowly, _painfully_ , drew his left arm back towards himself. The radio chattered at him, stern. The officer forgot to say _over_ , but would pause intermittently between sharply articulated questions for an answer.

"I can move." Vlad announced into the radio. He was certain this is what the officer wanted to know.

" _That's good,_ " the voice replied, a mixture of static and words. " _But I need you to stay still, alright? I'm calling backup, but I need to know where to find you. Do you know where you are?_ "

Vlad looked around. "Trees."

" _Very good. Are you on the I-9?_ "

Vlad squinted out at the trees and the bushes and the forest. "...A light."

" _Near a house? A town? Streetlights?_ "

Between the trees, light shifted. It bobbed between shadows and split into three lights. Vlad pressed his lips together. They blazed like fireflies and wove through the undergrowth toward the van. They grew in size, or got closer, or both. Something like that.

" _Talk to me, son._ "

"I think," his voice trembled to form each word. A glowing mist that became shapes, glowing and sharpening into identifiable forms. Creatures, even, with the most _unmistakable_ slotted eyes. "there are lions."

" _Stay_ inside _the car. Do not move. Stay with me, where are you?_ "

Vlad stopped listening. The lights that were shapes that were _definitely_ lions circled the car. Or at least, they were lions, but not lions from the mountains of Illinois. They had none of the lithe markings of a cougar, and were built much something traveling the plains of Africa. Except Vlad had been to a zoo. He knew what a lion looked like. These creatures, unearthly in every respect, were _not_ African. They had ideas of manes, tufts of thick fur around their necks, but nothing quite so typically majestic. And if he thought about it, if he got right down to it, if he could just think through the hazy to really truly say what he meant, it would be their size. Lions were most definitely _not_ tall enough to look him in the eye.

The radio chattered very urgently. He dropped the receiver. A lion (or a ghost of one, since lions don't have white glowing fur or crimson eyes) stood at the shockingly unbroken window. Its head nearly filled the frame. Frost gathered on the pane. With still-numb fingers, Vlad wiped it away. He shivered. Snowflakes gathered at the edges of the window, the creature behind it became only a blurry fuzz of white light. It wasn't particularly frightening, Vlad decided. He spread his fingers across the glass and reveled at its _strange_ coldness. The glass was not cold in a regular sense, though he shivered, but cold in a way that resonated in his bones and made his stomach twist and revived memories of the time he'd been lost in a blizzard when he was nine years old. He pressed his hand harder to the glass, chasing that memory, hungry to see it through to its end, to what really _happened_ before his father found him in the snow.

A block of ice pressed into his palm. His fingers turned numb. He could see it, the storm in all its rage and power, taking out power lines, howling through the streets, burying entire houses in hours. He saw himself, or a version thereof, struggling through piles up to his knees, clinging to his books with his head tucked down against gale-force winds. He called his father's name, praying that he would be heard before the snow swallowed him whole.

A presence lurked in the storm, wavering and shifting in the wind. An instinct in his gut gave him pause, he couldn't have possibly shiver harder than he already was, but his spine began to tingle and his teeth chattered with newfound energy. "Daleel?"

The presence that solidified above him was _not_ his father.

Seven slanted eyes peered at him down a long black snout that ended in crystal-like teeth, a mouth big enough to devour him in one bite, and drool that refracted rainbows in all directions. It wore the shape of a wolf in the same way P-40 pilots dress up their airplanes like great whites; clearly and mechanically a disguise for a greater predator. Its height was as tall as the big bad wolf from _The Three Little Pigs_ , but in an alternate version where he gobbles the whole house down.

Music that wasn't quite music and not quite sound chewed on his ears, _DOES IT SURVIVE?_

Vlad shivered with his whole body. He licked his lips, which cracked, "...It d-does." He said meekly, thinking of how _The Three Little Pigs_ was supposed to end.

The creature, some kind of demon that his father warned about, perked what might have been mistaken for ears. All seven of its starlight-composed eyes locked on him, and its black fur glinted with hidden gems, galaxies, worlds beyond the void. Its supernatural voice both sang sweetly and dripped with an almost tangible warmth. _DOES IT FEAR?_

The storm seemed to calm, the horrible burning from his nose, to his ears, and to his fingertips dulled. Wind whipped the trees around them into a flurry, but Vlad felt none of its bitterness. "Th-this isn't _scary_." He folded his arms tight to his chest and tried to remember what his father told him about heaven and hell. _Nothing_ _useful_.

The creature tilted back its enormous head and let loose a howl that shook the foundations of the earth itself. _IT WILL LIVE_. Giant black paws landed on either side of him, the great animal moved with speed and grace beyond its size. Around him it circled, its long black fur growing longer, wider, wrapping around him until the world outside reversed shades of light and dark. The snow fell black, and the shadows of the trees transformed into beacons. Here, warmth bloomed from his frozen toes and climbed upward to fill his whole chest.

The beast rested beside him, still an ethereal being painted by the night sky, but small enough to be mistaken for a horse. _IT IS YOUNG_.

"Are you going to _eat_ me?"

 _IT IS RUDE_.

Vlad clutched his books and squinted with heightened suspicion that he might have already died in the storm. His voice echoed through the quiet and dark storm. "You're going to eat me."

The creature grunted, a strangely musical sound. _NOT WE,_ THAT _CONSUMES IT_. The beast shifted to peer at a glimmer hiding between the trees. Arms and legs and shoulders, a human figure with starved red eyes. The wolf snapped its teeth and released a sound like thunder. The figure turned and fled. _SHADOWS HUNGER FOR LIFE._

"W-what," Everything went blurry, the snow, the shadows, the eyes of the creature itself. "What are you?"

Blackness swelled in front of him, the cold yanked on his chest, and he drifted from the world. Even faded, beautiful music like a billion harmonized voices rang clear, _TOGETHER, ONE. APART, NOTHING. WE ARE SHADOWS NO LONGER._

 _._

The car door popped open. Red and blue lights blinded him. "Found you," A deep voice, familiar, said with a released breath. "Can you hear me? Son? We've got an ambulance on the way."

Vlad blinked at the sheriff's badge, then the sheriff himself, who resembled neither a wolf nor a lion. He shivered. _Hungry_. _Tired_. _Cold_.

He closed his eyes and slept.

* * *

Hmm. How's my driving?

-Carrie

.

Up next:  
 **Chapter Four: Deal with the Dead**  
 _(all insecurities are half off)_


	7. 4 Dealing with the Dead

**Dealing with the Dead  
** _(all insecurities are half off)_

* * *

4

Danny Fenton has attended four funerals.

The first of which was for a bird, Twitter. This was before _Twitter_ , the social network, when the word was simply _twitter_ : (n) the sound birds make. An American Robin, unnamed, built a nest on the Fenton's back porch under the roof overhang. This took place in their first home; forever referred to in past tense as _the yellow house_. Twitter began as a blue egg, watched eagerly by the two Fenton children who dared to summit a step-stool on their tip-toes. When the egg hatched it became a constantly chirping fixture, rivaled only by the parent robins that squawked at children who got too close. Jazz Fenton, six, became an expert at repeating bird noises. Danny Fenton, four, imagined his sister might someday become a bird, in the way most children imagine impossible futures as inevitable outcomes. He said "tweet, tweet" and in a moment, this became a form of address. A name for the hatchling. _Twitter_.

American Robins will first leap from their nest thirteen days after birth. Most of them survive this event. Twitter did not. Jazz remembered the way her heart stilled when she pushed open the screen door. Danny remembered only one sharp image; a baby bird, a dark lump of small feathers, unmoving. In Columbia Heights, Minnesota, the Fenton family gathered around a patch of unearthed dirt on a damp spring afternoon. Maddie Fenton placed a children's shoebox (plus one dead bird) into the ground. Jazz dropped yellow grass flowers and dandelions on top. Jack Fenton wielded the garden spade; Danny dropped buckthorn berries onto the grave, insisting birds needed to eat. He was exactly four years, three days, eight hours and fifty-one minutes old.

He did not attend another funeral until he was living in Illinois. Eighteen days, twelve hours, and forty-three minutes after he turned nine years old, he was dressed in fine black clothing, brand new, and saying goodbye to a photograph of his grandfather that was too young and unwrinkled to be his grandfather. His third funeral took place in a similar fashion in a similar location for his grandmother; precisely fifty-six days, two hours, and eleven minutes after his tenth birthday. His black clothes didn't fit as well the second time.

Danny Fenton's fourth funeral was his own. He decided to do it in his second year of high school. One-hundred and thirty-seven days, eleven hours, and twenty-nine minutes after his fifteenth birthday. He wore a black sweatshirt, dark shoes, and his darkest shade of mud-stained jeans. Like Twitter, the funeral took place humbly in his backyard (a different backyard) and had a similar number of guests. Tucker dug a small hole with a garden spade, measuring it six inches by six inches. Sam read a eulogy in the style of classic beat poetry. Jazz brought flowers (tulips, yellow) and exactly fourteen buckthorn berries. In the grave Danny placed a worn, folded piece of paper - his birth certificate. Sam gave him a lighter. When the document became ash, Danny got on his knees and buried it with the flowers and berries.

He thanked his friends for coming. They left. He remained.

There's a weight to dying, and unacknowledged it became a burden. He dealt with it as well as he figured he could, knowing someday he would die again, and knowing that for the rest of his current life he was already dead. What he was now - dead, alive, both and neither - meant many things, but in the end it boiled down to ceremony; two ceremonies. Two funerals.

Two for the price of one.

What a deal.

* * *

Danny found considering the many ways in which he would die an inevitable pastime; it was easier to think about not having a future than it was to plan for one. He figured he'd die young. He almost counted on it, if his lack of college applications and complete disinterest in the job market had anything to say about it. Danny guessed that he might die falling, careening towards the earth without enough energy to keep flying - he had _almost_ died this way five times. There was also the very real threat that he might simply be beaten to death; this at least had the most willing contestants. Often he thought he might die on an operating table, and those thoughts made his breath stop and his heart freeze; he couldn't sleep when he thought of dying like that. He did, however, find time to cope with the possibility.

He did not expect to drown.

This is mainly due to the fact that he did not need to breathe. He hypothesized very few situations where running out of air occurred to him as a problem at all. Suffocation is a slow way to die, and with Danny's more permanent reserves, slow deaths were just _unlikely_. In fact, the only way in which Danny imagined his lungs might starve was on the infrequent chance he might end up off planet (again), lose in some kind of epic battle, and return to his human form in the worst place possible. In such an event, the terrifying vacuum of space presented a few more pressing problems than simple suffocation. That said, when confronted with the possibility of death arriving in a way he did not expect, Danny experienced _terror_.

Danny was in the diner, discussing the different types of eggs on the menu, and while he sensed that things were _off_ he'd been willing to wait for the right opportunity to get away from Dash. The waitress directed him to the back and he walked into the kitchen; the floor was wet. Walls of silver appliances surrounded him. He sighted a phone on the opposite wall (beige), took a step toward it, and without so much as a sound to mark the transition his foot landed in a running creek. The kitchen vanished, he glimpsed trees and the sky before water (loud, rushing) rose over his head with a sound like rolling thunder. Unnatural in every aspect of itself, the water swirled around him; his sneakers slipped on a bed of loose stones and he was swept upside down. The current pressed. The water was a familiar kind of cold, the kind that was more about the abstract _chill_ than the _reality_. Danny's lips parted - an accident, his lungs filled with the wrong substance.

This is no cause to panic.

He doesn't technically _need_ air.

Danny reach for his core, an energy that filled his chest and overwhelmed his senses for the split moment it took to transform. He activated it in the same way that he would stretch his legs or pick up a pencil, a muscular reaction rather than a forced command. His head down to his toes felt hot and cold at the same time, he closed his eyes, waited for the electric sizzle of energy to pass through his bones and make him lighter. He waited. It buzzed, definitely there, his core definitely active. Nothing happened. His lungs burned, his human body hit the riverbed and rocks dug into his back. His ghost half - try as he might - did not react. It was at this moment Danny realized he actually _needed_ air.

This _is_ cause to panic.

A stone struck him between the shoulders, breaking his concentration with a sharp jolt. He turned in the water, finding the stone and hooking his arm underneath it while water battered him from all sides. He tried to push off the rock, but was forced back down - the water kept him immobilized. Under. Drowning. Human. The stone dug into his stomach and his knees hit pebbles. His lungs burned, his throat ached; Danny opened his eyes (blackness with a lot of stinging) and slammed them shut again. He wrapped his fingers around a jagged curve in the rock, cutting his hands, and understood that he was going to drown. Years of facing his death on a seemingly day-to-day basis did not prepare him for the mind-numbing horror that sank into his gut.

He was going to die.

He was going to die and he couldn't even put up a _fight_.

White dots popped in his vision, he grew dizzy. Dimly, Danny thought of how this is what it meant to be human. To die without reason, without any power to stop it. Helpless. Unbidden, Tucker's voice entered his head, " _You're not human, Danny_ , _" he bumped against his shoulder, grinning, "and that's totally fine."_

Not human.

He dug his fingers into the stone and curled them, trying to keep still. Focused. He tried to activate his ghost half, reaching for the shift of energy and weight and buzzing fire in his gut, but it slipped away. Like trying to keep a marble from rolling off a quarter; one movement, and he had to start over. The current yanked at his clothes. His lungs burned, begging for help; he focused on them - the marble now balanced on a quarter which itself balanced on the tip of a pen - and grit his teeth. Lungs. That's all he needed, like phasing just his arm through a locker door. He narrowed the need to transform to that one area, threw all of his remaining brainpower into it.

For a moment he had it. A hot-cold jolt that sparked deep inside of his chest, making it lighter, softer. The hungry, oxygen starved dizziness in his head slowed - tricked for a moment to act like a ghost. His muscles burned, the water pulled his hair, and he lost it. A sick wave of nausea overcame him, he parted his lips, his mouth filled with water, and he hunched against the stone to try again.

In this fashion, Danny Fenton extended his life by exactly two minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

A buzzing filled his ears. His limbs grew heavy and his mind tired. The buzzing, a hum, grew louder and twisted into a tongue that was almost a language - it felt and tasted like ghostspeak, but garbled. Stars popped in his vision, hot and white, they formed into a circle in his mind's eye. Unlike the imprint of staring into the sun, this circle rapidly changed color. The pressure in his lungs faded. Danny didn't know if he was falling unconscious or seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel," approaching his second and final death.

The water seemed to fade away. He was weightless in the way that he couldn't feel his limbs. He floated in a black empty space, the colored circle the only thing to see. It grew brighter, bigger, filling a dark cavern…

It flickered.

Then turned off.

Danny hit the ground flat on his back, gasping. His limbs heavy, head pounding, chest burning. Innocuous water droplets trickled down his cheeks and sank into the cold water that lazed around his ears. He opened his eyes. Jupiter hung low to the horizon, Leo rising above it. Clouds obscured the constellations directly above. Danny breathed, his lungs miraculously free of water; his body protested his attempt to sit up, joints screaming at their abuse. He sat over his knees, huffing.

He found himself sitting in what was more of a really muddy puddle than a stream, though it carved a thin path down between the trees toward the lake. Beside his hand, a ghost fish emerged from the mud and swam around his head, then swished its tail and followed a stream that wasn't ( _was?_ ) there, away from Danny. It dissolved into a white mist before passing the first tree, merging with the forest.

Danny's body shook. He hauled himself to his feet and wobbled; black mud oozed down his arms. He turned his back to the forest. The diner, illuminated by the moon and backlit by a parking lot, was close enough to stumble to. Danny landed against the back door and fumbled with the brass handle. His throat ached and he felt between fainting and vomiting, but Tucker needed him. A terror radiated from the building, like a bad smell mixed with an unpleasant hangover.

He tried to activate his ghost half, thinking that it was about time he used it. The right energy tingled from his chest down to his fingertips.

Nothing happened.

* * *

Blood browns after a while.

Danny wore white, damaged sneakers. The damp shoes had plenty of seams where a needle and thread pierced them, accompanied by strips of peeling grey tape. Along the front of the shoes blood oxidized to a muddy shade. Danny ran his fingers over the laces, a habit he'd picked up whenever he needed to bring his knees to his chest and think of nothing at all. He had dirt under his nails, some of it dried up his arm. _Ring_.

He pulled the phone cord taut, then loose, winding the plastic cord around his finger. It pulled his skin tight. The phone existed on the wall of the convenience store where in the diner it had not, an illusion that was so real and convincing Danny wondered about the booths, how real they seemed, how convincing. Nothing in their current setting even hinted at tables and chairs. He pulled his finger free; the cord bounced back to compact curls. _Ring_.

The phone (beige) was affixed to the wall and wedged between a classic gas station coffee bar (black, silver, foam cups) and a manual-spin postcard display (Andy Warhol, cat pictures, Sarah Winnemucca). Danny placed himself (damp) underneath the phone (against the wall) between the coffee counter and postcards (a cat with sunglasses nearest to him read "fish are cool…" and presumably elaborated behind the cover). _Ring_.

Adjacent to a wall of crackers and jerky, Dash positioned a box of baby wipes on his knees. He pulled one out, thoroughly cleaned his hands and wrists, then dropped the wipe on the floor. It joined a growing pile of seemingly clean wipes. Dash plucked the next one from the box, his eyes glazed over in the methodic task. He did not notice the bloodstains on his jeans. Danny didn't remind him. _Ring_.

In the aisle behind Dash between a rack of toiletries and chips lay the body. Danny could only see her from the shoulders up. Her hair framed her face in a gold and red halo. A shadow distracted the floor; Tucker, pacing outside. He went through the motions of someone who believed that stomping feet and determined scowling would somehow inspire a better plan. _Ring_.

They didn't have a better plan. They had a corpse. _Ring_.

All those ghosts and they weren't prepared for a dead body. _Ring._

Ironic.

 _Rin-click._ A throat cleared. " _Hello?_ "

Danny plucked at his shoelaces. He considered letting the phone drop and dangle uselessly by his side. He considered leaping to his feet and slamming the phone back on the receiver. He considered lapsing into a silence only filled by his low breathing. " _Who is this?_ " Annoyed. " _How did you get this number?_ "

Danny scratched his nose. "I memorized it." He admitted and pressed his back against the wall, comforted by its solidity. "I, um, I don't - don't flatter yourself." He could feel the pause on the other line like a mosquito bite on the bottom of his foot. "I won't put your number in my contacts, but I still had to know it because - well, what if you're being crazy or - or… general, prank calls… I didn't memorize it because I wanted to or - " He bit down on his lip. He did not need _help_. "Please don't hang up."

Apprehension wrapped around his throat and constricted; Danny's gaze wandered over to the body and stayed there, familiarizing himself with the change of color from her hairline to her forehead to her nose and to her lips. Blonde, pink, red, brown, red, grey. He thought of how he must look, the damp boy on the phone with a dead woman on the floor. " _Daniel_."

He wore blood on his shoes.

"V-man."

Like war paint.

" _Don't call me that._ "

Rust colored war paint, scratched and deteriorating.

"Sorry." He needed new shoes. "So, uh, how's the land contract going?" Danny searched for the right words. He didn't know why he needed to sound normal, but he absolutely completely _needed_ to. In the casual tone of small talk and weather commentary, he tactfully added: "Have you ever killed anybody?"

" _What?_ "

"I mean, like." The wall against his back dropped in temperature. Danny pitched forward, freezing. "You know how to hide bodies, like, after they're… dead."

Seconds stretched with the same weight as hours. Vlad's reply was terse and serious, but not accusatory. " _I might be somewhat familiar with_ dead _things_." Danny tangled the phone cord between two fingers and set to pulling himself free. "Cool, cool. Cool. I might need - need that. A little. Not really. I mean I'm fine."

The line was silent for long enough that Danny thought perhaps no one was on the other end. But as the thought crossed his mind, he caught the tail end of what was a very long sigh. " _Where?_ "

His shoulders sank. As predicted, Vlad used the same calculating intensity that made him creepy and unapproachable. Danny never thought that'd be such a relief. "Uh - a diner, no, gas station. Near the, um…"

" _Algernon's_."

"Yeah."

" _Stay where you are_."

Danny tugged on the cord. His toes were cold. "Yeah," he muttered. "Thanks."

Vlad gave him only a click and a dial tone. Danny dropped the phone; it bounced and dangled inches above the floor. He pressed his hands together and rubbed them, fighting the idea of cold. It didn't change anything; this was just how he reacted to feeling… to not knowing… to not…

Impossibly, ectoenergy hummed under his skin. The coffee machine that had been emitting a low hum ground to a halt. The metal nozzle fogged over with a layer of frost. Danny got to his feet and tucked his hands under his arms; he just needed to distract himself, that was all. Nothing was wrong. He looked at Dash, who ran out of new baby wipes and utilized old ones to scrub under his fingernails. Dash.

A bystander.

Innocent.

 _Shit_.

Danny turned away, unable to piece together what he should even try to do about that. He walked to the woman sprawled on the floor, her head turned and cooling in a pool of her own blood. Her feet were neatly tucked and arms spread. Tracks of viscous blood like spiderwebs congealed in her hair and dried around split lips. He waited for guilt, pity, panic; something that would qualify as a reaction. _Nothing_. The fluorescent lights buzzed; Danny ran his shoe over a streak of blood on the tile and disturbed none of it. Dry. His head started to spin in the way that indicated a drop in his reserves. He blinked once, twice, and while the woman was still there and the lights just as fluorescent, Danny wasn't. He was in his body, in his head, and everything around him glazed over. His knees hurt, and his fingers itched, and his hair felt greasy - but these were distant, unimportant needs.

He was supposed to know what to do with himself. He was supposed to know what to do about Dash. He barely knew how to pull air into his lungs, he could hardly feel himself existing in the present moment. He needed to be in charge. To lead. Or to at least have Sam tell him what to do; she could pretend to have a plan where Tucker could only admit they were out of their depth. He wished he could have called her; but between them, Danny and Tucker could only remember that Sam's phone number had two sevens and a five in it. He didn't know what to do.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge. He looked out the window and found Tucker framed by lamplight, his arms folded, eyes locked on the body. People have died around them before, not like this, but they've died. Tucker was usually the one calling an ambulance. Now he just stood. Lost. Danny walked around the body and jostled the door - the same bell that had greeted them rang cheerfully. The night air cooled his damp clothes and made him shiver. Tucker turned.

"Hey," Danny said softly.

"Hey."

"Cold out here."

Tucker shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I'm used to it. My best friend is a living ice cube."

Danny snorted. He smiled, a fake and unimpressive attempt at laughing it off. He walked over to Tucker, unsure of what kind of reassurance there was to give. Tucker took his hand and turned it over, frowning at the blueish tint to Danny's fingers. "You don't look very good."

"I'm just - frazzled," Danny admitted. "I'll be fine."

Tucker shot him a glare that clearly told him he knew it was a lie. He sighed and rubbed his head, facing the store again to stare at the body. "Frazzled. Sure. And I didn't kill anybody, she's just sleeping. We're not in over our heads, we _definitely_ have an idea of what we're up against now."

 _Movie popcorn. A brand new CPU in plastic packaging. Muddy shoelaces._ Tucker had a scent - not in a way that actually smelled like anything, but in the way that Danny came near him and was reminded of certain comforts. The human version of an ectosignature; organic. Underneath all of the familiar was something else, something that stung like a swarm of biting ants. "I'm sorry." He winced; all the ants bit down at once. "I don't know what…"

"Don't apologise." Tucker didn't take his eyes off the body. "You didn't do this."

"I wasn't there."

"So?" Tucker clenched his fists. "It doesn't change anything."

Danny stepped closer to him. He touched his arm; Tucker flinched, looking at his hand. He frowned, shoulders dropping. "You're cold, Danny," he whispered, shivering. "You're falling apart. _We're_ falling apart."

Ashamed, Danny propped his back against the glass and sighed, tilting his head up. The convenience store still had the same broken neon lights they'd seen when they came in to a diner. A bad omen. "I called him."

Tucker expertly rubbed his eyes without disturbing his glasses, fully exhausted. "Good," his voice cracked, "you needed to."

"We needed to."

"No." Tucker shook his head. He indicated the window. Directly behind Danny, a reflective halo bloomed with frost that grew visibly thicker. Danny jerked away from it and folded his arms tightly, hiding a glimmer of fear. "Oh. That. I'm just...off." _Need to calm down. That's all_.

"You're _leaking_."

"I'm having a bad day."

The softness that had entered Tucker's eyes from the moment he noticed Danny's frostbitten fingers vanished. He glared him down, lips tightly pressed together. "The last time you had a bad day the worst thing that happened was a broken plate, Danny. You don't have slip ups like this. Something's _wrong_."

"Well I can't ask _him_ for help!" _Discomfort sank down into his bones. All of his scars exposed, Vlad having put some of them there. Fear and anger warring in his gut and all he could do was reach in the fridge and pretend to brush it off. He removed a gatorade and could feel Vlad watching him all the way back to the volleyball game. Seeing what he was. What he_ really _was._ "It's not simple, Tucker! He's dangerous!"

Danny could only see his memories on the beach. People looked at him. The ball went too far. They watched, they talked, they guessed. His heart pounded, his breath caught. They would ask, they would know, they would never leave him alone - Tucker's voice snapped him out of it. The parking lot, the convenience store, his best friend. It all spun. "You'll have him hide a body for you and that's fine?!"

Danny swayed. He slumped against the store, shoulder crashing into a thick layer of glossy ice and glass. Beneath the ice, the glass was deeply scratched by some former incident. Danny stared at the scratches, his breathing slowed. Tucker grabbed his shoulder, leaning in. Danny blinked at him, disoriented. Wasn't Tucker supposed to be angry? A thumb swiped underneath his eye, catching a - tear? Danny blinked. "Eyes are glowing again." Tucker said softly, frowning. "You need to ask him for help. I can't do anything, I don't know enough."

Danny looked down at himself. His entire body glowed dimly, an aura that faded only when he scowled at it. Danny wiped at his nose and shrugged, scuffing the concrete. "I can't transform," he admitted, shame colored his cheeks.

Tucker's jaw dropped. He searched Danny's face, waited for a punch line. When it didn't come his hands flew into the air and shook. "Y-you didn't - _tell_ me?"

"You were panicking. I'm sorry."

"You can't _ghost_?"

Danny smiled meekly. "I can't even."

"It's not funny!" Tucker stopped, he spun. The trees observed in silence. He stepped off the curb and paced between parking spaces. "Your eyes are glowing?"

Danny lifted his arms in helpless defeat. "I don't know. I have - the energy is _here_ I just can't…" Danny sank in on himself, his throat tightened. His eyes changed color and glowed with the same dull light of a child's plastic glow-in-the-dark stars. "Don't make me tell Vlad. I don't want him to know that I can't… that… I can't let him know I'm defenseless."

His bones ached, a familiar headache in his temples. He watched the ground; Tucker's sneakers marched into view, stopping inches from Danny's blood-smeared trainers. Hands fell on his arms, squeezing lightly. Warm breath spread across his nose; Danny looked up. Tucker was close, heat spilling off of him, a reminder of what it meant to be warm. Human. Tucker squeezed his hand. It hurt to hold, stinging like stepping into a warm house on a snowy day, and for the first time Danny feared that he wasn't going to get better. That his skin would turn purple and black, and that he would slowly freeze until the ghost inside of him killed whatever humanity was left. The gravity of the situation hit him right then; he could be _dying_. He had to do something, he had to - "Okay," Tucker said, his voice low. "We'll figure it out. You and me."

Danny blinked. "Really?"

"We've got this far, right?" Tucker grinned. "And you only died once."

Danny laughed, a hollow sound. It echoed and reverberated through the parking lot, even after he stopped. Danny paled, the echo grew and morphed into a deep rumbling growl. Sound bounced between the trees and circled them; the unmistakable bellow of a machine with an engine that was built to be quiet until it reach 100 miles per hour. Unconsciously, Danny moved in front of Tucker as a black sedan with tinted windows ejected from the road and slammed on its brakes. It moved with the elegance of a shadow, the headlights inactive and dark decorations. The tires screamed and spit dust into the air in great plumes, the car spun and then landed in perfect alignment with the handicapped parking space.

The driver's door opened.

Out of the door stepped a man. Despite the lack of both streetlights on the road and active headlights on the car, he wore sunglasses. His hair, which was long and grey, was braided neatly down his back. In one hand he held car keys and in the other he carried a sleek silver phone. He smiled at them, but it was not a smile so much as a show of unnaturally pointed teeth. "Evening." Vlad Masters shut the door, for all intents and purposes impossible to distinguish between a human being and a prince of hell.

Danny fell into a defensible stance without thinking about it. His knees hurt when bent to lower his center of gravity, and a breeze that stuck to his damp clothes made him shiver. Danny folded his arms to keep himself still. "Vlad."

"Daniel," Vlad greeted easily. A foreign raw ectoenergy stuffed the air; Vlad winced, and it faded. He stepped up to them, as completely unfazed by their meeting as he would be for the apocalypse. "I see you've mastered the art of sleeping with your eyes open."

A million responses came to mind, each sharper than the last. Danny held his tongue, he wanted to get through this alive. He ached for normalcy, for a ghost hunt that involved tangible ghosts, and he wanted sleep more than anything. "I told you I'd find out what you're planning." He said, letting his exhaustion show. "Is this it? Are you doing this?"

Vlad paused, he tilted his head with a carefully neutral expression. "Am I… doing what? Your phone call was exceptionally vague, son."

"Don't call me that." He lost control of his shiver, his shoulder trembled with it no matter how hard he held himself together. "I need to know if I'm kicking your ass or not."

Vlad looked him up and down, at his damp clothes (the second time that day Danny stood in front of him soaked); he took in the way Danny seemed on the verge of sinking to the ground and lying there until the sun came up. "You called me… to confront me in front of a gas station… to ask me if I'm… what, exactly?"

Tucker grabbed his shirt, but his fingers fell away when Danny marched up to Vlad. At age 17 Danny was nearly at his full height, and stood only an inch shorter than Vlad. Unbidden ectoenergy leapt into his eyes, angry and popping. His skin lit up, translucent, flooded down into his fingernails and made them glisten with starlight. "Someone's dead," Danny said quietly. "I can't afford to mess around right now. Tell me."

"You look faint," Vlad replied, an anger in his voice that reflected Danny's. "Unfortunately, Daniel, I am not the source of all your misfortune. I'm here, despite my better instincts, because you _asked_ me to be." A shock like a dog's bite struck Danny's arm and he jolted, falling back. Vlad replaced the glasses. "I told you. I don't actively seek your company."

Danny rubbed his forearm. "I can get behind that."

"Then why am I here?"

"You owe me."

Vlad's sunglasses lit up with a furious fixation. "For _what_?"

"You're the one who strapped me to a table and decided to play _coroner_." Danny shook, sick to his stomach. A familiar taste in the air, like a storm about to break, but Danny was certain that he himself produced that feeling, that Vlad's presence alone exposed something volatile in him. "I'd say you owe me for it."

"You burned my house down for that!"

"That fire was a civil service."

"You _killed_ my cat!"

Danny held up his arms, "Well how was I supposed to know you _had_ one?"

"You didn't _check_ before you commit _arson_?" Vlad pointed at him, the air popped around his body, shimmering and morphing. "I owe you _nothing_. We've been _even_ for a _year_ and I have not done a _single thing_ to tip that scale. I don't want anything to do with you, I told you I'm - " He stopped himself and straightened, righting his blazer and fixing his tie. "No. I'm done. Good luck with your murder."

He turned his back. The storm broke.

"Fine! I didn't want your help anyway!"

"Danny."

"Not now Tuck."

"But - "

Danny twisted out of Tucker's way and followed Vlad back to the car. "I shouldn't have called you in the first place, I knew you'd be useless! You're just a heartless, stupid, _empty_ \- "

Vlad seized him by the shirt and slammed him against the car. Danny gasped, stinging, his legs shaking. He tried to transform - instinct - but nothing sparked to the surface. The ectoenergy burning in his eyes faded and his skin became normal and opaque. All of his resources fled, untouchable, uncontrolled. "Do _not_ call me that." Vlad's teeth were terrifyingly sharp up close.

"What?" Danny struggled. "Which one? Empty?"

An ecto-gun whirred to life. They stilled at the familiar sound. Tucker planted his feet and aimed the lipstick blaster point-blank. "Let him go."

Vlad blinked at the tiny weapon. "You're serious?"

" _Very_."

The space around Vlad's body rippled. Waves that were heat and rage and terror morphed all around him, a vicious anxiety that clung to living things and dragged them down with it. The energy billowed, a vibrant fury, popping and sparking the physical air. Danny held his breath. The energy expanded, reaching for Tucker, wrapping around him with an invisible but electrifying power. The ecto-gun loosened in his fingers, his eyes went wide, Tucker gulped for air that didn't reach his lips -

If it wasn't for the bell chime, Tucker might have dropped his only weapon. Instead, Vlad's attack was interrupted by a mad-eyed teenager in a too-tight Danny Phantom sweater. Dash ran at Vlad in the same way a lemming runs off the edge of a cliff; with only a fear of what's behind, and no thought to what danger lay ahead.

Tucker fired.

The blast ricocheted off a shield that materialized in front of Vlad and struck Dash dead on. He fell.

Taking advantage of his relative confusion, Danny pushed Vlad off. He knelt next to Dash, but hesitated with Vlad hovering over them, "Pause."

"You don't always have to say it, Daniel. I understand _basic_ secrecy," Vlad said, proving that he did not at all _care_ about basic secrecy. He brushed off his coat and gave the teenager curled on the ground a snide look.

Dash groaned.

"It's friendly fire, you'll be _fine_."

"Pause generally means shut up, fruitcake."

"Oh, so now we're supposed to operate on the same page? Forgive me, I misinterpreted."

Danny held his tongue for Dash's sake; he poked his shoulder and earned a wince. He glanced at Tucker, who had shied away from the convenience store with a cautious look. Danny wasn't concerned; god forbid anything attack with Vlad present (that was, incidentally half the reason for calling him in the first place, not that Danny _needed_ protecting). "Come on, Dash, you're fine. Ecto-blasts don't hurt humans, you know that."

Dash rolled over. He held his hand over his cheek and ear, where the blast had grazed. Danny frowned. "Hey? You okay?"

Dash pressed his trembling lips together with his eyes squeezed shut, and shook his head. Danny took his hand and slowly pried it back to reveal the red welt underneath. A stench rose, stomach-churning and familiar in a way that hit him full-force; burnt ectoplasm and human flesh. It was the same distinct smell that Danny's own wounds carried, unique to a specific _kind_ of creature.

Dash peeled his eyes open. Even the pain-closed slits had something off about them, an almost-glow that flickered underneath his irises. "Fenton?" Dash's voice was hoarse.

Danny stared into his eyes, riveted, on the brink of witnessing the impossible. "Yeah?"

"Do you, ah, do you know how to tell if someone's alive or, uh… like, hypothetically, _not_?"

In that moment Dash's eyes flickered briefly, but unmistakably, _supernaturally_ green.

* * *

It's nearly two am. What are you doing? Are you getting enough sleep?

-Carrie

 _Up next:_  
Excerpt 4  
 **Vlad Masters**  
 _and the peculiar autopsy of Agnieszka Stawecka (Part 1 of 3)_


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